EMILY

We piled into the wagon on a cold, hazy morning.
I wrote down the date: July 1st, 1859.

My parents and I went into the village to meet the caravan.
There were more of us than I expected -
at least a hundred men and women and children.
People had come from Swindon from Bristol from Bath
many poorer than I.
Dirtier.

I couldn’t seem to let go of my mother’s hand.

Some other elders stowed me atop a cart alongside a grey-haired widow with a steely face.
I’m Marian, she said. Did they tell you it rained the entire way here?
I tried to catch Sam’s eye but couldn’t find him in the crowd -
an elbow here, the curve of his neck as he bent over an axel.

As we pulled out of town I watched my parents fade away into the mist.
First my father’s face
then my mother’s
her eyes clasped on mine,
Still I stood, swaying, until all that was left was the chimney-smoke from town.
After I was baptized, I’d realized something:
It was this idea of having roots.
My parents were rooted people -
my father as much a part of the stone house as its beams and splinters
my mother warm and real, like dirt and grass and things that live in trees.


And then there was me
and I wanted to feel the in-and-out of my stomach
as I ran towards an undiscovered land.
I had no roots, so:
I was perfectly ready to be moved.


THE MONSTER


My world is really something.
It’s all blues and glassy greens and small bioluminescent things.
There is no light here so we have taught ourselves to glow.
The air up there smells like corpses and limestone.

She deserved better.

And yet I resisted.

I watched the sprog by her side spring into a lanky pre-teen, all limbs and hair.
The kid was rough to look at, but my beloved Julia had imbued her with light and grace.
That was her name, I’d learned.
Julia.
Motes of light phasing down from the surface, the smell of skin after a hot day: Julia.
She was wholly unaware of her own specialness. She glided through the world in  ignorant radiance, drawing all the plebeians into her orbit.
And she was married to that nerdy fucking vulture of a man! She could be the Queen of the Entire Underworld and instead Julia was folding Hawaiian shirts and attending Star Trek conventions. 
I brooded in the filthy water under the pier as they built a cotton-candy city atop it, all whites and pinks and people screaming and neon lights. My water was sweet with funnel cake and rank with oil.
They named this neon world after me. I, who could never see such wonders. The irony of it!
And yet -
if anyone could love me, who but this raven-haired angel who’d built me a monument?
She who had chosen to spend her days surrounded by me, studying me, celebrating the glory of me?

It could be a sign.
It had to be a sign.

Most days, Julia would climb down to the beach and swim alone in my waters.
It was as close as I could come to holding her.
She swam with agility and purpose, tanned limbs knifing in and out of the water.

I watched her.
I coveted her.
I left her alone.


EMILY


Our boat was beset by storms.
Marian had warned me not to eat, but I didn’t listen.
I remember a bucket, Marian’s gnarled hand on my back, and then - humiliating - Sam’s.

Even with my head spinning and the taste of bile in my mouth I felt immensely conscious of his hands on me, of the closeness of our bodies
He pulled up my blanket and I could see the small pulse in his neck as his hands brushed the bare skin near my collarbone.

Stop, I remember telling him.
He frowned. Stop what?
Stop being kind to me,.
You want me to be unkind?
I glowered and shook my head, No, no you don’t understand -
But I slid back into unconsciousness, dark days of swinging lanterns and leaky pipes.

On the twenty-fifth day, some of the sailors set off rockets over the water, red and gold;
Marian helped me up on the dock to watch.

I don’t like the smell of burnt things, she said, wrinkling her nose.
We watched the sky explode in rainbows.

On the thirty-third day a great cry came up from the front of the ship.
We had landed.

A ferry took us from the boat to Castle Gardens, where they stamped our passports and tugged at our skin.
I thought Marian would bite down on the fingers that pressed on her teeth.
Sam was waiting to guide me out of the crush of people.
My dress stuck to my back with cold sweat.
He grinned at me with relief, as the balding man on his left said -
Elder Crane tells me you were one of the last to join us from Horsely.

I nodded, and the balding man stretched out a hand -
Elder Rich. I’ll be leading our wagon train as Acting President.

I barely had time to shake his fleshy hand before I was hustled away again, Sam’s eyes disappearing back into the crowd.

Marian and I were sent to a boarding-house on the Bowery where neither of us slept.

The next morning it was a train,
the world whipping by us in grays then browns then deep blue-greens.
My breath fogged the window as Marian dozed, day turning to night and back to day again.
Still I couldn’t close my eyes, the newness of it turning me inside out.

You should sleep, Sam said, his own eyes resolutely open.
Tomorrow will be harder.
But I couldn’t sleep -
not when the sprawl of New York had given way to mountains,
not when our train stopped in Chicago to refuel and the smoke of the city spilled in through the doors,
not when a bell rang overhead to announce that we were half a day out from Iowa City.
I didn’t know how anyone could sleep, given the chance to see such wonders.


KAYLEEN


Dad is still passed out on the couch when I get back.
I crumble my wet bloody cargo shorts up into a ball and drag the trash to the end of my driveway.
Then I throw my shorts in and burn it all up.
I sleep for like thirty minutes but I’m basically an insomniac anyway.
The next day is rough.
The park is crazy busy, and at one point a kid vomits on Revenge of the Deep so I have to clean that up.
I can still see the place where Tanya threw up on the beach below.
My Dad is like super animated. He keeps trying to grill me about college stuff.
Did you say yes to SLCC? You could transfer to the U in a year or two. The U’s a great school, Marv. I shake my head and slide back under Legacy of the Leviathan.
My parents call me Marv whenever they think I’m being obstinate. It’s short for Marvin, as in Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
My Mom always wanted me to go somewhere far away for school. I love you Marv, but you’re a round peg in a square town. You deserve a round world.
Without her, it was a flat pancake world.

Tanya is sitting at the corn dog stand playing with her split ends and ignoring her punky friends from the funnel cake stand.
I slide up as chill as I can.
How are you, like, doing? I ask.
She grimaces.
I don’t want to talk about it here.
I recognize a couple of the guys waiting in line for Legacy of the Leviathan. Cops. One of them is Hyrum Bates’ dad.
Tanya, I say. We should tell someone.
She shakes her head.
No one even knows he’s gone.
And it’s true.
Some part of me expected everyone to show up to the park in a panic, screaming HAVE YOU SEEN BRONSON REED?
But everyone’s just, like, being a person.
Tanya says: What are you doing tonight?


EMILY


We arrived late in Iowa City..
Elder Rich made plans for us to sleep in the depot.

It was my first glimpse of true cold, the kind that sucks the breath from your bones.
Marian shuddered on the ground in a too-thin coat.

I might have frozen had Sam not found me.
Wordlessly, he pulled me against his chest and wrapped his coat around us both until I stopped shaking long enough to fall asleep.
When I woke up, he was gone.

At dawn, we staggered out of the depot to retrieve our handcarts.
They looked like upturned boxes, each affixed with a handle for pulling.
We labored in shifts, other families lending us their sons when our hands began to chafe.
Too many hours later, we made our camp somewhere along the flat expanse of the Iowa plains.

Would you like to read from the book?

Marian had a weathered Book of Mormon spread out in her lap, just visible by the light of the fire.
I can’t read very well, I told her, with some reluctance.
I did not like to conceive of myself as a person who grew up without books.

Her eyes followed mine, to where the Elders were meeting at the center of camp.
To one tall, stooped form in particular.

I’ll read to you, she said.
Help you learn.
Like Anthony for me.

She tapped the front page of her book, and I leaned over to sound it out -
A name. Anthony Malone.
Your husband? I asked.
She smiled slightly:  It was his dream, to see Zion. Now it is mine.
I couldn’t find the right words.
Marian, I -
She shushed me.
We read.

In a quiet, low voice, Marian read to me of Lehi and his family, and their passage across the sea.
Of brother turned against brother and the settling of America.
Of the good Nephites becoming the wicked Nephites, of the wicked Lamanites becoming the good Lamanites .
For, if ye forgive men their trespasses, Marian recited, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

She stopped, frowning.
Are you listening?
I nodded, although it wasn’t strictly true.

He’s too old for you, she said.
I said: You’re too old for me.

And Marian laughed.


KAYLEEN


The trailer park where Tanya lives is a half-mile down the interstate.
At lunch I tell Dad that I have a study group and he’s so freaking thrilled that he lets me leave before the park is even closed.
I knew you’d find your people, he says. Smart kids, like you.
I would never tell Tanya this but the trailer park kinda scares me. I change my outfit like five times before leaving, which is insane because sometimes I wear the same thing for like three whole days in a row.
She meets me at the front door, in a ratty pair of Hello Kitty PJs and a cropped tank.
Sup, Revenge of the Nerds, she says.
The living room smells like cigarettes and air fresheners. There are small black stains on the rug, but otherwise the place is clean. Immaculate, even.
My mom’s out, Tanya says. You want something to drink?
I open my mouth to ask for a Coke or something, but then I see she’s pulling a bottle of whiskey down from the top shelf.     

Tanya’s room has a big pepto-pink rug and band posters all over the walls. Her lamp is draped in a silky scarf so everything feels orange-y and warm.
Do you know the Talking Heads? she asks.
I shake my head.
Yeah, duh, says Tanya.
She takes a big swig from the whiskey bottle and turns on her boombox. The music is bubbly and electronic, with a man yelling something about a shotgun shack and the other part of the world. 
This is weird, I say.
It’s genius, she says. Why are you sitting all the way over there?
I have perched myself on the windowsill.
Tanya sits folded up on the bed like a cat, cradling the whiskey bottle.
I join her, my butt barely touching the edge of the mattress.
Why is it genius?
She smiles, like she’s been waiting for someone to ask her that.
It’s about this town, she says. The way everyone is a zombie until they wake up one day and realize they’re married and they have these cars and these houses and it’s like -
She mouths along with  the music -
How did I get here?
Tanya passes me the whiskey bottle and I take a sip.
He sounds weird, I say.
She does that snorty-laugh thing.
That’s the whole point.
I contemplate the idea of being weird on purpose.
I say: I have a theory.
Tanya nods.
Okay…okay. What if this isn’t the first time this has happened? Like. What if the….Monster…has eaten people before, but no-one was there to see it?
Tanya chews her lip.
Like, I add, any mysterious deaths, y’know? People who - who disappeared? What if he’s just been there this whole time -
I almost scream when I realize Tanya’s hand is on my knee.
Are you sure, she says, that you want to talk about this?
Her hand is on my knee.
I nod.
Okay, she says. Okay.
And she takes her hand back.
So anyway, I say, and I’m talking too fast, I was thinking we could go to the library, and get some like, evidence? Look up some previous sightings, see if they have anything in common?
Does your Dad know anything about the monster? She asks. I mean, you have a whole monster park.
I shrug.
That was my Mom’s thing, more.
Tanya passes me the bottle and I swig.
The park was her idea, actually.
Weird, says Tanya.
Why is it weird?
Not bad-weird, just….weird that your Dad would want to keep it open.
There’s no judgment in her face, just the orange-y glow from the lamp.
He thinks, I say, that if we keep it open she might come back.
I take another swig.
Easy there, champ, says Tanya, and she gently pries the bottle from my hands. And then: What do you think?
The world is starting to blur just a little at the edges.
She’s wearing this baby-pink lip gloss, and it occurs to me that she put it on for me.
I think I want to know what’s going on in the lake.
Tanya nods, and then says, very seriously:
Kayleen. I’m really sorry.
Her eyes meet mine, and I want to tell her how my Mom loved the lake, loved its depth and its warm, hazy surface like taffeta, how she found this battered-ass copy of Lord of the Rings for me even though it had been banned, how she was magic like that.
I ask Tanya: why are you being so nice to me?
She laughs for real at that, a low, throaty sound, and says:
If you hadn’t noticed, I’m always nice to you.


EMILY


More than two hard weeks of pulling, to get us across the border into Nebraska.
I dreamed of beasts hiding in the desert to snatch us. 
Red-eyed reptiles with a thousand fingers. 

Even the stars were different here than in England.

Yet we were strong of spirit, as Elder Rich said in the morning sermons.
Each night Marian would read to me from her book, and others would listen - the Nielsens and the Fieldings and the Bates’s. 
Even Sam, his face inscrutable in the fire light.

I felt myself growing stronger, my hands callusing, the sun staining my skin.

You need someone to cut your hair, Marian said to Sam. 
He let her do it, too, kneeling bravely in front of our tent.

There, she said. Now we can see your eyes.
He laughed, blinking in the midday sun. 

We arrived at the Winter Quarters not long after crossing into Nebraska. 
It was more of an encampment than a town -
but it was shelter.  

Not a minute too soon, either - Marian was exhausted, her stiff back bent. 

We gathered that night in a long wooden barn, the elders at the front, the rest of us on benches.
For the first time in weeks we had meat, and thick bread and salty soup.  It was warm. I could see the color returning to Marian’s cheeks. 

Elder Rich told us we would be here for three days, just long enough to gather supplies and rest before the most difficult leg of our journey.

We slept hard that night, Marian and I in our sod hut. 

We were sharing the space with the Fieldings, a Danish couple, and their two sons. Their youngest boy had taken something of a shine to Marian. His name is Thomas, they told us, for his grandfather. 

In the afternoon, I went to seek out Sam, and found him hunched deep in conversation in the main barn.
I retreated, but couldn’t help lingering outside.

We lost time coming across the sea, and again waiting for your party in England. Sam’s voice. 

It’s barely September. Elder Rich, unctuous, calming. We’ll be through by October.

Sam again. We’ll have to cross the Sweetwater. 

Immediate silence. Whatever the Sweetwater was, I wanted nothing to do with it. 

The town is not provisioned for these numbers. Elder Rich once more. They lost over a hundred last winter. If we make it over the mountains by November, we could lose none. 

If, said Sam. If we make it through. 

I could not hear any more. 

When I returned, Marian and little Thomas Fielding were washing clothes outside the hut. 
Her hands grey and gnarled, his small and delicate.
She splashed him, playfully, and he flinched at the spray of cold.

And I realized: 

We were not all going to make it to Utah.