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Entry 6
Harlan had said nothing all this time, but I began to sense these people were not all strangers.
August 10
Three days have passed since I last wrote. There are things I noticed at the retreat that I’ve put off recording because they seemed so fantastical. This includes my retreat mates, if they can be called that. At least it’s how I saw them at first, until things began to change.
Remy had said little about himself. The look, and a slight South Asian accent, made him stand out from the others. I would guess India, or Pakistan, but he never verified it.
After dinner, but before Phillip’s tall tale by the fireplace, several of us were sitting outside in the cool air. The lodge had a large wraparound porch with a half dozenwicker rocking chairs in a line along the front wall. I was sitting between Remy and Harlan, with Claire to Harlan’s left. The others had all gone to wash up or change their clothes while we sat listening to nature’s orchestra, fullest at night.
Remy turned to me and said, “Trust is a choice.”
I’d asked the others on the porch if they were comfortable with this experience, believing I couldn’t be alone in my trepidation.
“What is it we’re supposed to trust?” I said.
“Beneficence,” said Harlan. “Whoever invited us all here surely has our best interests at heart.”
I looked at Claire, with her yellow pallor under the porch lights. She shrugged.
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Entry 5
It had been a long day and I was already teetering on sleep. I hadn’t yet wondered what it would mean for me that I might be the odd man out, or why.
August 7
The dinner proceeded for some time, each guest talking casually while I made mental notes about them and watched. We reveal ourselves through our movements and expressions as much as we do our speech. Observation is a habit, perhaps a discipline, in which you stop cataloguing details and start noticing the spaces between them, the things that don’t quite line up. I want to be honest and tell you I don’t know exactly when that shift happened, only that it had happened by the time Eileen refilled my water glass without my asking.
Phillip suggested early on that we each say something about why we’d come. It wasn’t demanded, exactly. Nothing at the retreat those three days and nights was demanded, only suggested in a tone that made refusal feel like bad manners. Claire went first, unprompted, something about a divorce she hadn’t had yet but could feel coming, like bad weather forecasted with certainty. Harlan mumbled about ‘unfinished business,’ which struck me as deliberately opaque, information that was by design not informative. Benita laughed and said she was there because her therapist suggested a retreat and she’d Googled the wrong kind. Considering the nature of the online posting we’d all responded to it seemed unlikely.
Larry said almost nothing, which was its own kind of answer. Remy offered a single word—’curiosity’—delivered with such flatness that no one asked him to elaborate. We were all curious, were we not? About spiritual matters, about afterlives, about reincarnation and ghosts.
When my turn came, I gave some version of the truth: I was there because of the item on a website we’d all seen and responded to. (At least that was how I assumed they were all there, an assumption that proved incorrect and nearly fatal in the end.)
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Journal Entry 4
Some of those revelations would turn out to be confessions of crimes, though the evidence would never make it into a court of law.
August 6
Were you to notice the dates of my writing, you’ll see significant gaps. That’s due to my personal struggles, resulting in large part from the consequences of this misadventure. There are days and nights when I’m simply unable to do much, and writing, however easy that might seem, becomes a herculean task. At the same time, I realize I won’t always be able to record these events, barring a miracle, so I will continue attempting it as best I can.
To say I was hungry by the time we headed to the lodge for dinner is an understatement. I hadn’t eaten anything that day other than a bag of cashews I bought at a gas station outside Easton. Other than that, my only fuel had been four cups of coffee—I admit to having a caffeine addiction that, if not fed regularly, gives me crushing headaches. I even travel with my own small percolator and can of coffee. It has proven prescient on more than one occasion.
We had been told to arrive by three p.m., which was after lunch. It seemed like the standard check in time for a hotel, so I had assumed it would be much like staying in one. I was wrong. There was no one at a front desk—no front desk at all—and only signs posted on the driveway saying ‘Men’s Cabins’ and ‘Women’s Cabins’ with arrows pointing us in the directions of them.
I ignored the sign at first and went directly to the lodge, only to find it locked. How strange, I thought. Had the retreat been cancelled and I hadn’t been notified? Then, of course, I noticed the other cars. There may not be anyone in the lodge, but there were certainly people in the cabins. I made my way to the men’s quarters, met the other gentlemen, and found the note on my mattress. Five mattresses, five notes, four men—which meant, of course, I was not the last to arrive. It was only later I would find out I had been. The mysterious fifth man, whose bed remained empty and whose fate would be revealed before the end of this misadventure, would never be encountered.
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Journal Entry 3
Your life is the chapel, and the thousand small details in the painting are the events of your life.
July 21
I’m not in a hurry to write this, as you can tell. It needs to be told accurately, in its own time. The events I’m describing at the retreat were ultimately not as significant as what happened afterward—to the others and to me. It’s a kind of remarkable tapestry, terrifying to behold, with its woven images of demons and the vast dark unknown, that has to be viewed patiently. Imagine yourself standing fifty feet beneath a painting at the top of a chapel you might see in Rome. Your life is the chapel, and the thousand small details in the painting are the events of your life. Past, present, and future.
You cannot comprehend its whole without examining each small part. I am, ultimately, a small part of it all, as is everyone who was there, with the possible exception of Philip. He was more than just a storyteller. He was a bridge from what came before … to me. I am what you’ll find on the other side of it all, should you survive the journey. An ending that begins, and a beginning that will eventually end, but not yet.
Dinner was waiting for us later as promised. But first I wanted to shower and change my clothes. The summer was hot, and the drive from New Jersey had taken longer than expected. The traffic gods were either determined to trouble me, or to try and stop what was coming. They could be cursed in either case, for their success and their failure.
The cabin was small but solidly built, with dark log walls sealed by tar, and small windows cut into each wall. There were five beds, two on one side and three on the other, each with a plain quilt and a rough wooden frame that looked hand-built. The three men who’d gotten there before me had already claimed their beds. I saw suitcases on two beds, one with a duffle bag beside it as if the guest had planned to stay longer. A third suitcase was under another bed, leaving me two to choose from.
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Journal Entry 2
We are, in the end, drops of water from on ocean that awaits our return. Until then, we seek.
July 18
I had not expected to spend a sleepless night. Ghost stories told around a fire, which is what this at first appeared to be, are the stuff of childhoods and the easily frightened. We were adults—three women and four men, one of whom had done his best to scare us all with a preposterous tale.
I didn’t know any of them. The retreat had been arranged for seekers, such as we were, not for a group who knew each other. And while I place myself firmly in the agnostic category, I will admit now that I belong more in the believer column, though it’s not a belief that comforts. It’s a belief in the malevolence of things we don’t understand and are better off not examining. The whole experience has confirmed my conclusion that the human species is not the pinnacle of evolution, but it’s most tragic mistake.