Spiritual Nourishment

Against her wishes, a young student is transferred into a new and unwelcoming school. But what is happening there proves so much more sinister than she anticipates.

***Content warning: This episode deals with themes of religious and psychological abuse, homophobia, and discrimination against non-binary people. Listener discretion is advised.***

Transcript

[Darker Pastures Theme - Intro]

NARRATOR

A good parent protects their children – this is a widely accepted belief, and rightly so. But so often, what people may call protection is in fact domination, thoroughly damaging in its own right. And some of those who most loudly decry the abuse of the young are in fact the vilest abusers, hiding behind a frail mask of righteousness.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Intro - Continues]

NARRATOR

Episode Sixteen: Spiritual Nourishment.

(Sound of Western meadowlarks and mourning doves singing)

NARRATOR

From her upstairs bedroom, Kate can hear her parents arguing yet again about the approaching fall semester. It plays out just as it has the last four times: her mother, Suze, thinks Kaye should remain in the local public school at least one more year, until she finishes the eighth grade, whereas Scott, Kaye’s father, says it’s time to seriously consider another option, that public school just doesn’t cut it anymore. He leaves unspoken how, under Hickends and his lap-dog legislature, public education funding has dried up as thoroughly as the Platte River. But when he mentions making use of the new voucher program, Suze is quick to point out that the vouchers might as well be toilet paper, since most private institutions have simply raised their tuition to remain exclusive. And besides that, she adds, there aren’t any private schools within a hundred-mile radius anyway.

Lowly, Scott says that there is still one option, the one which Suze stubbornly refuses to keep in mind: Bethsaida.

As it always does, the name conjures in Kate’s mind the stark mental image of the refurbished white church building, previously home to the local Methodist congregation before they disaffiliated and then quickly disintegrated, both financially and socially. Around it cluster two all new, and equally, glaringly white, sheds and a single other building looking almost like a small house, the purpose of which has never been clear to Kaye.

And in front of it all, that large white roadside sign with the blocky red letters: Nourish the spirit… with the Spirit!

It is not a pleasant image, not to her. It has always reminded her too much of a military compound – or perhaps even more, that of a cult.

Her father’s suggestion predictably breathes new life into the argument. Kaye consciously tries to stop paying attention, moves to look out the north window over the field of tall green corn, at the dilapidated, abandoned farmstead beyond it. The empty old house and the leaning barn were for a very long time familiar and wholesome sights to Kaye, comforting like the presence of an old and reliable friend. Only in the last couple years has it undergone a gradual shift, growing subtly more malignant, bespeaking hidden decay and unvoiced tragedy.

Her parents have returned to a normal conversational volume, but remain audible – apparently, they have never realized how readily their voices carry through the air ducts. But even if she could not hear them, Kaye would be more or less able to guess what point they had reached in the well-rehearsed debate.

Scott is saying that maybe a parochial school – even an evangelical one – wouldn’t be such a bad thing for Kaye, that it might help with her confusion.

Confusion – that is the word he always uses, when he dares to broach the subject even obliquely. And he always says it with that same hesitant tone, that particular emphasis. It has been so ever since that last sleepover with her best friend Rach, an annual tradition they have observed at the beginning of every summer vacation since Kaye was in the first grade. When Suze walked in on them that fateful morning, Kaye tried to tell her that they were just practicing kissing, but her mother fled too quickly. A few days after Rach went home, as the three of them sat down to dinner, her parents told her that they loved her, but that she needed to be careful and to think things through – that she and Rach were both young and confused and that there would be so many unforeseen consequences for them if they chose to take this thing too seriously right now, to continue down this road.

The conversation shocked Kaye, left her feeling wounded and lonely. Her parents are lifelong Democrats – a relative rarity in her corner of the world – and she always assumed they would be more open-minded, more accepting, than so many of their peers. They had always seemed so accepting and even defensive of her openly gay Uncle Drew.

Again, Kaye tried to tell them that it meant nothing, that they had only been practicing, but they seemed convinced she was lying or hiding something – which seemed to her very much at odds with their insistence that she was only confused.

Kaye is snapped out of these unhappy ruminations by a deviation in the debate’s script below – her mother, sounding tired and uncertain, is for the first time saying that maybe Scott is right, that maybe they could give Bethsaida a chance.

Please, no, Kaye mouths breathlessly.

Though she has been angry with both her parents since the awful dinner table conversation, she’s considered her mother the more sympathetic, the more genuinely concerned with her well-being and happiness – until this moment.

Now she realizes she is truly an outsider in this house she has always called home.

Kaye begins to reach for her phone’s usual resting place on the nightstand, before remembering for the umpteenth time that it supposedly went missing almost a week ago – likely so she can’t do exactly what she just meant to and reach out to Rach, seeking an affectionate and supportive presence.

Flopping down belly-first on her bed, she buries her face in the pillow and begins to cry, angrily and silently. When her mother calls her down for supper, she gets up only to shout back that she’s not hungry, and then lock the door. Returning to bed, she falls into an early and unrestful sleep.

When she wakes a little past midnight from a dream of standing happily at the altar with Rachel, both of them in white tuxedoes and her parents beaming proudly from the front seats, it takes her a long time to fall back to sleep.

[Short pause]

(Peaceful ambient music fades in)

NARRATOR

Only once does she get to see Rachel again before starting at her new school, and, at her own parents’ insistence, only under the eye of Rach’s mother. Fortunately, her mom is less conservative or controlling than Kaye’s parents, and mostly spends the lakeside visit resting in the shade of the tall cottonwoods and reading a paperback romance.

Still, it feels like a constraint, and Kaye longs to talk alone and openly with her longtime friend.

She does, though, tell Rach all about her parents and their poor response to the discovery, and of their decision to enroll her at Bethsaida over her objections. As she speaks, she can see Rach’s face fall with dismay.

That fricking sucks, she says simply, but with deep and genuine feeling. Then she wraps Kaye in a close embrace, and a tender warmth flows through Kaye that she has felt only in Rach’s presence.

For an instant, she teeters on the edge of asking the question that has nagged at her subconscious for months, but before she can utter the first syllable, Rachel pulls away, and Kaye’s nerve fails.

They spend the rest of the afternoon walking around the lakeside, careful to remain always partially in their chaperone’s sight. Losing themselves in easy, gentle conversation and in light friendly joking, they each seem hesitant to address the mutual sadness they share.

It is only when they part that Kaye articulates the words, lost on the cottonwood-seeded wind, Was it just a kiss to you?

(Peaceful ambient music fades out)

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Her first day at the Bethsaida School of the Holy Spirit is every bit as dreadful as Kaye anticipates. Over the entrance, painted large and red, are the subtly menacing words: God is Love, God hates Sin.

Within the first hour, her teacher calls her to the front of the class to demonstrate how her skirt is too short, too revealing – though it reaches her knees. His tone sharp with rebuke, he tells them all that they don’t want to look like loose girls – and then he licks his lips, with such lizard-like speed that Kaye cannot be certain she hasn’t only imagined it. None of the other students seem to notice. At last she is able to resume her seat, to the sounds of poorly muffled, mocking laughter and contemptuous sniffs.

Only one girl, the only Black student Kaye has yet seen at Bethsaida, offers her a sadly sympathetic smile. Kaye tries to return it, but isn’t sure if she succeeds.

After lunch, all of the students are made to sit in a prayer circle, in what was once the church sanctuary. This is utterly new for Kaye, and deeply uncomfortable. A man sits in the center of the circle, who proves to be the founder of the school himself: Lucas Jager. He tells each of the children to reflect upon their sins, upon what is most vile and repellent within themselves. Only by such reflection, he insists, can they be purified.

They sit in such bleakly contemplative silence for ninety minutes.

Afterward, as they head back to their classrooms for the final lessons of the day, Kaye finds the girl who smiled at her earlier by her side.

The other girl brushes her arm briefly, offers another shy smile, and introduces herself as Jamie. Surprised, Kaye returns the courtesy. Jamie looks around to make sure no one is paying them too much attention, then observes softly that Kaye looks about as happy to be there as she is.

Kaye murmurs that her parents made her change schools.

Mine too, Jamie says sadly, then explains that they thought that the public schools were teaching the children things they shouldn’t – changing them, somehow, brainwashing them.

Inappropriately, Kaye snorts with derisive laughter. Seeing the other girl’s surprise at the outburst, she hastily asks if they thought that wouldn’t happen here.

To her relief, Jamie shares in the laugh, albeit unhappily. She agrees that it’s a fairly stupid line of reasoning.

Before they can continue the conversation any further, the teacher ushers them impatiently into the classroom. And when class ends and they are dismissed for the day, Kaye is held back by the teacher, told to be sure to dress more appropriately tomorrow. By the time she leaves the building, she can see Jamie getting into the car with her mother, who, she notices, is white.

How was the new school? Kaye’s own mother asks brightly, as she climbs into the white CRV.

Kaye shrugs in answer, and Suze’s smile slips a little. After a moment, Suze says that Kaye has to put in a little effort, that it might be a big change, but a good attitude is the key.

Wanly, Kaye says that she misses her friends and her old teachers.

Life moves on, her mother replies.

They ride the rest of the way home in silence.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

At lunch the next day, as Kaye sits in a lonely corner of the little dining hall in the basement, Jamie comes and takes the seat beside her. Despite her gloomy mood, Kaye flashes the other girl an easy, genuine smile. Jamie is the only friendly face in this unwelcoming place, and she seems just as friendless herself.

For that effort, Kaye is rewarded with Jamie’s returned smile – a very pretty one, Kaye thinks, and is suddenly and inexplicably reminded of Rachel.

They make a few faltering attempts at small talk, and then Kaye blurts out a question that has been sitting at the back of her mind since the previous day: why Jamie’s parents forced her to leave public school, to attend Bethsaida.

Jamie blushes, and fumbles for words. Kaye is about to apologize for prying when Jamie finally summons an answer.

She says that she’d started asking her friends to refer to her as they, and that her parents couldn’t accept it. They assumed it was something she picked up at school, and refused to listen when Jamie said it hadn’t been, that it was all something Jamie had slowly been realizing about themselves over the past few years.

Jamie falls silent then, waiting for Kaye’s response. The obvious trepidation on Jamie’s face melts Kaye’s heart, and she realizes what it must have taken to reveal this to her – especially in this place, where it might bring so many ugly repercussions.

Kaye reaches across the table and takes Jamie’s hand, and the smile the other student flashes at her this time is so radiant, so beautiful, that Kaye feels a little flutter between her heart and her stomach.

What about you? Jamie asks, after a while.

Hesitating a moment, Kaye says that her parents saw her kissing another girl, and that now they are afraid she’s gay, that they think somehow changing schools will help.

Are you? Jamie asks, gently and not unkindly.

Slowly, Kaye says that she doesn’t know, but she thinks of Rachel again and wants to say, Yes, yes, I am.

A teacher walks by and notices their still-clasped hands, frowns, steps closer to loom over them. She says that no physical displays of affection are allowable, most definitely not unnatural ones.

They disentangle their fingers, then scowl at the teacher’s back as she walks away.

How much you want to bet her computer is just overloaded with the nastiest porn? Jamie whispers.

They both giggle over their lunch, doing their best to reign it in when the teacher looks back over at them suspiciously.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Though Kaye still despises Bethsaida, the next weeks are more bearable with Jamie’s company. On the rare occasion they can talk freely, they commiserate about the awful ninety-minute prayer circle that follows every lunch, about the stuffy, nosy, heavily projecting teachers and the useless lessons, heavy with dogma but light on fact. And they complain about their parents, their utter refusal to listen or to understand.

It's only after several of these conversations that Jamie reveals they are adopted, though Kaye had already guessed as much. Their parents are even worse about not listening than hers: Jamie learned long ago not to bother telling them about the ugly looks and words thrown their way, by students, teachers, and other parents alike.

They always tell me I’m just being too sensitive, Jamie says, then adds, this from the people who freaked out and turned my life upside down the instant I told them something they didn’t want to hear.

Parents suck sometimes, Kaye offers sympathetically.

Sometimes, they do, Jamie ruefully agrees.

As they walk out together at the end of the day, Kaye thinks for a moment that the lettering over the entrance has changed, reading: God is Hate. But then she blinks, and it is the same as ever, and when Jamie asks what’s the matter, Kaye says that it is nothing.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

The next month passes much the same way, and Kaye thinks that she can just about suffer through the remainder of the year, as long as she has Jamie to share the burden with. And, she thinks, maybe she will get to see Rachel again over the coming holiday break.

Then comes the day when Lucas calls upon one of the students, a quiet and chubby boy named Greg, to come with him during the prayer circle. Greg hesitates, plainly shocked and terrified to be made the focus of attention, but Lucas insists, saying that he is ready for what comes next.

Haltingly, Greg asks what that is, exactly.

Purification, of course, Lucas replies unsmilingly, and says that he will help Greg shed his sin, his awful inner ugliness.

Greg still hesitates, then one of his classmates lays a hand on his arm and tells him it’s okay. Finally, Greg relents and moves toward Lucas. The man leads him out of the room. As they disappear through the doorway, a heavy sensation sinks into Kaye’s stomach. She and Jamie share a troubled look.

Greg does not return to classes for the remainder of the day.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Every day thereafter, Lucas picks a new student to leave the prayer circle with him. And always, they are absent the rest of the day, and sometimes several days afterward. When they do return, they seem subdued, different in some indefinable way, though they always smile and make no complaint.

Kaye is only somewhat relieved when Jamie voices the same observation – relieved that she is not alone in noticing it, but also disturbed the murky implications of its reality.

After the eighth student comes back, smiling but so much quieter than they were before, the two friends begin to devise a plan to discover what is happening to the unfortunate selectees.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

The next day at prayer circle, just after a girl is chosen to be “purified” and led from the room, Jamie asks to be excused to the restroom. The teacher left in charge in Lucas’s absence frowns, but grudgingly allows it – bathroom breaks during prayer are discouraged, but not outright forbidden.

As they leave the room, Jamie winks at Kaye, and Kaye has a moment of terrified disbelief at the bold indiscretion, sure someone else will notice it and see through them. No one does.

Counting backwards from ninety in her head, Kaye sits and pretends to reflect, all the while struggling not to imagine what might happen if their little subterfuge is discovered.

Then, seeming both too late and too soon, she reaches zero. Making use of that dubious gift which she discovered at the age of twelve, she places her hands on her stomach and says she isn’t feeling well. Then she begins the rhythmic muscle contractions in her abdomen, squeezes her eyes shut, and wills the contents of her water-bloated stomach back upward. When the teacher approaches dourly to talk with her, Kaye purges herself all over his shirt. She cannot help but feel a little vindictive gratification that it is the same teacher who needlessly shamed her on her first day.

His face turns red, and it is obvious that he struggles to suppress another reaction, looking like he might burst in the process. Instead, he icily excuses her and tells her to get to the front office and call her parents. As she leaves the sanctuary, she can hear chaos erupting behind her, hear the teacher struggling to contain it, uncomfortable in his befouled shirt.

The lady in the office is much more sympathetic, checking in with her as she sits and waits for her parents to arrive. But Kaye is restless, sure that through the open door of the front office, she should be able to see or at least hear Jamie moving through the halls when has finished her mission and returns to the circle. Yet the halls remain silent.

By the time her mother arrives, Kaye is beginning to feel truly ill. And when her mom arrives and they are passing through the doors, she once more perceives the words above them differently.

God is eatin, as though the final g was elided on the last word.

It is only a trick of the light, she tells herself, but it remains even after she blinks several times.

(Ominous music)

[Long pause]

NARRATOR

It is a full week before she sees Jamie in school again. She waves at them in the hall, but Jamie seems not to notice. And at lunch, they sit, smiling but quiet, with the large group of girls at the center of the dining hall.

Afterward, as the students gather for prayer, Kaye makes sure she gets a spot next to Jamie, and quietly hisses: What happened, where have you been?

Jamie smiles blandly, says that they don’t know exactly what she is talking about.

With mingled frustration and alarm, Kaye leans closer and asks explicitly what happened at Jamie’s last prayer circle.

Oh, Jamie says slowly, eyes widening. I learned a lot. Lucas showed me the wickedness deep inside me, helped me be free of it.

After a moment’s pause, Jamie adds breathily, He showed me what a beautiful young woman I am. He showed me that I can be perfect, just as God meant me to be.

Kaye asks if they’re joking, but Jamie just holds that vacant, wide-eyed smile.

Stifling a ragged thing that is crawling up her throat, something between a sob and a scream, Kaye rises and runs to the restroom, locks herself in. Leaning in over the sink, she stares into the mirror and lets it out, weeping furiously. When, after about ten minutes, a teacher knocks at the door and calls to her, she says she’s feeling sick again, asks to call her mom.

There is an awful moment of silence, then the teacher, a woman Kaye doesn’t really know, says kindly that of course she can.

As they drive home, Suze tries to ask her what is wrong, but Kaye can only think of her friend, and the empty thing that looked like, but was not, Jamie that sat beside her at prayer circle. And all Kaye can do is to sob helplessly against the passenger window.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

When Kaye wakes groggily from a tear-induced nap, evening is falling outside, throwing weak, slanting rays of terminal sunlight through her bedroom window.

From below, she can hear her parents arguing again. Her mother is saying that Bethsaida was a mistake, that Kaye is miserable. Scott replies that she’s just adjusting, and that they have to give her time to settle in.

More firmly than Kaye has ever heard her speak to him before, Suze says that’s not what this is. Then she tells Scott to look at something, to see what passes for education at Bethsaida.

There is a long pause, broken only by the faint sounds of movement downstairs.

Okay, he says at last, softly. We’ll pull her out at the end of the semester.

Kaye lies still atop her bed, disbelieving her ears and scared that she will wake up at any minute. After a few minutes, when she has convinced herself that this is real, she is distantly surprised to discover that she barely feels any relief.

It’s too late, she thinks numbly, Jamie’s zombie-like smile flashing once more through her mental vision.

She wants to cry again, but she is so emotionally exhausted that she cannot seem to even summon any more tears, as though she has spent her last reserve of felling and is now empty.

Perfectly empty, she murmurs to herself, as she slowly slips back into sleep.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Jamie never approaches her again, and over the next few weeks, Kaye retreats back into herself, doing her best to draw no attention. None of the other students make any effort to befriend her, and the teachers, dour as ever, show only the most passing and disapproving of interest.

She develops a habit, though, of discreetly watching her erstwhile friend. Jamie has indeed changed, shows so much less character… But they – or maybe, she, now? – also seems so untroubled, so peaceful, that Kaye sometimes almost wonders if the change is for the best.

Almost.

One evening, coming home from school, she finds her phone lying upon her pillow, along with a brief note in her mother’s delicate, flowing hand.

Think you should have this back. Love you always, just as you are!

In spite of herself, Kaye smiles.

Then, she texts Rachel.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Rachel picks her up on Saturday morning, while Kaye’s parents are away. She is almost a year older than Kaye, and has just gotten her provisional license and an old, cheap car. While it’s technically not legal for her to be driving Kaye around, out of school hours and without an accompanying adult, it is also very unlikely that anyone will notice or care on these dirt backroads. And besides, she doesn’t have very far to drive them.

They pull into the old, abandoned farm on the other side of Scott’s field. Pulling into the overgrown driveway, Rach parks and shuts off the engine, then turns to Kaye and hugs her tightly, whispers that she’s sorry about Jamie.

Kaye sinks into the embrace readily, draws a deep, ragged breath. Then she says that something really messed up is happening at that school.

Yeah, Rach agrees, and says that she’s glad Kaye is getting out.

Kaye struggles to find words, and slowly says that it feels wrong to leave without doing something more.

Like what? Rach asks.

Uncertainly, Kaye responds that she just wants to know what is happening there, exactly, maybe even expose it to the world if it’s as awful as she thinks it must be.

Rach doesn’t respond at once, but frowns thoughtfully. Kaye notices how the sunlight catches in her dark hair, seems to give it golden and copper highlights.

Then Rach asks tenderly if Kaye knows that she’ll always have her back, no matter what Kaye decides to do.

Breathed bated, Kaye reaches for the other girl’s hand, takes it tentatively. Rach smiles at her warmly, and despite the uncertainty and fear that has gathered so thickly in her heart, Kaye laughs with the purest joy at the beauty of this moment.

(Tender music)

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Kaye tries to formulate a plan all through the next morning, paying so little attention to her lessons that the teacher scolds her twice. But Kaye hardly cares – she will be gone soon enough, and she cannot stop thinking about that smile of Rach’s.

Over lunch, Jamie comes and sits beside her, to Kaye’s great surprise and fragile delight.

I’m so happy for you, Jamie smiles.

Struck suddenly with guilt, Kaye says that she wishes Jamie could get away too. This seems to confuse the other student, and frowning, Jamie asks what they could possibly want to get away from, saying dreamily, Everything is so perfect here.

They pass the rest of the meal in silence, Kaye hardly touching her lunch and trying to summon up the nerve to ask what Jamie meant about being happy for her.

At prayer circle, Jamie also sits beside her, deepening Kaye’s apprehension.

Then Lucas utters the words that she has dreaded for so long: that it is her time, that she is at last ready for purification.

Kaye denies it, her voice coming out broken and thin, says that she has not found anything sinful or hateful within herself.

Lucas replies that they both know that isn’t true.

It’s time to bare yourself before the Lord, he says, quietly but so implacably firm. It’s time to let me purify you.

Kaye shakes her head and begins to rise, ready to flee, but the huge physical ed teacher, Mr. Clausen, has stealthily appeared behind her. Placing a heavy hand upon her shoulder, he urges her toward Lucas.

Come, Lucas says softly. Do not be afraid. You will be perfect soon.

They march her out of the sanctuary, out the back door, toward the house-like structure behind which she has never been inside.

The room they take her into is small and lit only by the diffuse sunlight that filters feebly through a heavily curtained window. Within there are only two pieces of furniture, two metal folding chairs facing each other in the center of the room.

Sit, Lucas instructs her.

As Kaye unwillingly complies, she hears the door shut behind her again, hears the deadbolt secured from without, notices the lock has been installed in reverse and cannot be unlocked from inside. Clausen has left them alone.

Lucas calmly takes the chair opposite her, seating himself upon it cross-legged, like a mockery of a bodhisattva. His eyes seem to glimmer in the dim room.

You know why you are here, he says in barely more than a whisper.

Kaye shakes her head.

You know, Lucas insists. Look inside yourself, look into your memories. You know the part of yourself that is unloved, unloveable.

Unbidden, Kaye remembers the kiss, the smile, Rachel’s face, the joy and the flutter that accompanies them.

Yes, Lucas says. Such impure thoughts you nurture, such abominable desires. Let me cleanse you.

Again, Kaye shakes her head, begins to rise from her chair. But with unnatural strength, Lucas easily pushes her back into the seat with but a tap of his fingers.

Then his mouth opens wide, and she sees why he never smiles. The teeth in the mouth are too small, almost vestigial, and the tongue is too long and too sharp. Worse, the inside of that mouth is all grey and dry, like the skin of a mummy.

Something, a faint blue luminescence, seems to gather between them, and then to slowly drift toward the open, monstrous orifice. And only then does Kaye see the fainter tendrils trailing toward herself, realize that the glow is being drawn from the center of her chest, her forehead, pouring out of her like thin mist.

She tries to struggle, to scream, but she cannot move, cannot breathe. She can only watch in paralyzed horror as he drinks and drinks from the wellsprings of her soul.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

When Suze picks her daughter up from school that afternoon, she is surprised by how at ease she seems, how happy even. She asks how Kaye’s day went, and Kaye says that it was perfect. For a moment, Suze wonders if she was too hasty in concluding that Bethsaida was the source of her daughter’s misery, if maybe they shouldn’t withdraw her after all. But her pleasant surprise beings to give way to concern as Kaye offers no further words, only sits and smiles, beatifically but blankly.

After five minutes of this uncomfortable silence, Suze asks if everything is alright, if something has happened.

Everything is perfect, Kaye answers, intonation and timbre perfectly unchanging. I am perfect.

Suze does not know how to respond, and when she finally asks what that means, all she receives in answer is that hollow smile.

Concern turning to alarm, Suze tries to tell herself that she is overreacting. As they pull into their driveway, she is struck by something that is either a flash of genius, or a desperate grasp – she asks if Kaye wants to have Rachel over for the weekend.

Who is Rachel? Kaye smiles.

Suze gives a feeble laugh that soon dies away into silence as her daughter merely sits and smiles and waits for an answer. As the pause stretches far too long, Kaye finally gets out of the car and walks mechanically toward the house, eyes fixed on nothing. Scott, returning from the fields, meets her near the door and smiles at her, offers what seems to be a fond fatherly greeting, though Suze cannot make it out clearly through the CRV’s windshield. But whatever response he receives seems to unsettle him, and as Kaye blithely disappears through the front door, he and Suze share a look of bewilderment and deepest foreboding. A soft pained sound escapes through the strangely bereaved mother’s lips, and Suze cannot seem to find the strength to open the driver door and make her way into the house.

(Darkly sorrowful music)

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro]

NARRATOR

Story, narration, and arrangement by Lars Mollevand. If you enjoyed today’s story, please rate, review, and share. Thank you for listening. We’ll meet again… in darker pastures.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro - Continues]