Excerpt: Meet me at Persephone's

The morning found Marly stirring uncomfortably in her bed. Her neck was stiff, her mouth was dry and her head ached. She reached over to shut off the alarm, knocking it off the nightstand with her groggy reach.

She groaned with frustration and pulled herself out of bed. The alarm clock had to go back on the nightstand. She walked over to the window and stretched. The sun had just begun to rise and the house was very quiet around her.

She could see the center square, a trickle of people beginning to cross the compound's green – on their way to visit family members or friends for breakfast, or on their way to morning harvests.

She didn't completely understand what she had overheard. She knew it was an extension of what was discussed at dinner, but there was a tinge of malice there. It was like her father cared more about the money than about his followers. This was not what Casparism was about. Money was the last thing they cared about. Everything was free.

Her heart ached with unwanted knowledge. Money had always been a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Money was a perversion, money clouded the judgment. She knew her father wanted to build the temple, but she always thought it would just happen somehow. She did not think of the cost of materials and labor because such costs were never a part of her reality. Now, now she did not know. They had never actively recruited so much as shown people their goals and dreams. People, the over ten thousand followers they had all over the United States, had all joined of their own volition. They were beloved as followers of the truth, not just sources of income. Such thinking as she had heard showed an alarming lack of love.