by Julia Bell
‘See He has sent us sinners who repent!’
I stood there up the front, hot and ridiculous, aware that everyone was staring, especially Thomas Bragg, who smirked at me while Bevins went on and on about how the time was now, how we had to give thanks, how we had to prepare. He was sure that he had the date and the time. More sure than he had ever been. ‘Next week – next week the moment will be upon us and all our earthly suffering will be ended!’
Eventually he started leafing through his Bible and motioned for me to sit down next to Rebekah. She raised her eyebrows at me as I sat down, the cloth bunching around me like a heavy curtain.
‘You’re wearing a dress!’ she said.
‘In case you didn’t notice –’ I hissed at her – ‘I didn’t have any choice!’
‘You look weird.’
‘I feel weird.’ I did. I felt like a fake version of myself. Like I was in a play or something and all I had to do was say my lines.
‘I’ve got a plan,’ she said, pointing at the doors. ‘In a minute, follow me.’
Mr Bevins asked everyone to sit. Then he read us the story of Jonah who was swallowed by the whale.
When he had finished, Hannah stood up, hands raised to the ceiling. ‘Oh Lord, thank You for this encouragement, for this sign that You are near,’ she said. I watched her in prayer, eyes squeezed together the tightest, hands lifted higher than anyone else’s. She was showing off.
Bevins said we needed to kneel and contemplate the last days. To become still so we could be even nearer to God. There was the hush of a deep concentration and I closed my eyes, except I couldn’t concentrate. This was all getting too weird too fast. The end of the world wasn’t going to happen; it was a load of mad rubbish. Wasn’t it?
I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting with my eyes closed; for a moment I wondered if I’d fallen asleep. One of the twins was whining and wanting to play with their toys, which dropped with a loud clatter on to the stone floor.
Rebekah poked me. ‘Come on,’ she said in a ticklish hiss close to my ear. She stood up. ‘You need to pee.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said. And then it was her turn to give me a you-must-be-stupid-look. ‘Oh. OK.’
We stood up, and the women turned and stared.
‘She needs the toilet,’ Rebekah said to Mary, who raised her eyebrows at me but said nothing. Everyone else was still praying, their eyes closed, and no one seemed to notice us. But I knew Bevins was watching. He had eyes in the back of his head.
Once we got outside Rebekah raced away from me, towards the cabins. ‘Come on, we’ve got to be quick!’
I tried to run, but I kept tripping over my dress. ‘I fucking hate this thing!’ I said, trying to flap my arms free of the material.
‘Why are you wearing it then? You look ridiculous!’ She laughed at me.
‘Because I was scared, OK?’ I tore the headscarf off my head. ‘Of what they might do.’
We both looked at each other, suddenly serious. ‘Let’s get that phone,’ she said.
His cabin was close to the church. Rebekah tried the door but it was locked. We went round and peered through the window. Inside was a bed with a blanket folded on it and on the walls were pinned sheets and sheets of paper with writing on them so dense that some of the pages were almost black. Some seemed to have red lines connecting them, and bits of string pinned between the pages.
‘Wow, look at that.’
On one piece near the window I could see the words His salvation comes into the world as a dark light, written over and over in biro so the paper was dented by the marks of the pen.
I ran my fingers underneath the rim of the window.
‘I could probably force it. If I had something to lever it with.’ I looked around me. ‘There,’ I said, pointing at a stick lying in the grass. ‘Pass me that.’
Rebekah gave it to me and I tried to drive it under the window frame. There was a splintering sound, but all that broke was the stick. Panic rose through my body.
‘Too rotten.’ I stepped back. ‘I don’t care if we get caught. We need to get a message out there. Someone will come and help us. Find a stone, find a stone!’
I looked about but all I could see was dense tufts of yellowing grass. The dress and my panic seemed to make all my actions slow and difficult. We were running out of time – Mary would soon realize that we had gone out for more than a bathroom break.
Finally I found half a brick underneath the cabin, I picked it up and threw it at the window, but the window wasn’t made of glass, instead some kind of cheap plastic, which cracked and bent, and the brick came bouncing back at us, narrowly missing Rebekah’s head.
‘Careful!’
I was shaking now, adrenalin making me clumsy, dithery. I tried again, holding the brick in my hand and ramming it into the window. This time the plastic splintered and broke into jagged pieces, making enough of a space to climb through. I tried to jump up, but the material of the dress, hot and heavy, kept snagging, so I pulled it off and climbed through the narrow gap, landing on his desk, sending papers flying everywhere.
I looked around me. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a phone.
‘What does it look like?’ I shouted to Rebekah.
‘Like a small suitcase,’ she said. ‘You have to open it up to get it to work.’
‘Shit.’ We didn’t have any time for all that.
There was nothing much in the room, just papers everywhere, a spare suit hanging up, and by the bathroom bunches of poppies all hanging upside down, drying. There were piles of letters next to the bed, some of them, I noticed, addressed to Rebekah. I took one and stuffed it in my pocket.
I knelt down and looked under the bed. ‘I can’t see it!’ But then – there it was: a grey case. ‘Found it!’ Oh, please let it work. Then I realized it was fastened with a combination lock. Oh hell no.
‘It’s locked!’ I wailed, but Rebekah didn’t respond. ‘It’s locked!’
I looked up, but the face at the window wasn’t hers.
FIFTEEN
REBEKAH
I have never seen him look so angry. His face is ashen, his mouth set.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ he shouts. He gets a key from his pocket and opens the door. ‘This is private property!’
Hannah and Thomas and Father are all there. Hannah gasps when she sees the mess.
‘Vandalism!’ she says.
‘No!’ I hear Alex scream, and the sound of a struggle. Thuds against the wall of the cabin as she kicks against them. Thomas and Bevins drag her out. ‘Let me go! Let me go! I want to go home!’
Bevins’s face is flushed and greasy with sweat. ‘See how she lies!’ he says. ‘See the wickedness!’
Hannah shakes her head thoughtfully. She picks up the dress and holds it in a bundle under her arm.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she says, smirking almost like she is pleased. ‘The devil will out.’
‘Leave her alone!’ I say.
‘You need to watch who you associate with,’ Hannah says, pursing her lips at me.
When they come out of the cabin they are holding Alex between them. Father has her under the arms and Bevins and Thomas hold her legs. She is kicking and wriggling.
‘Get. Off. Me!’ Her face is red and she is crying, but they are too strong for her. They pin her to the ground.
‘Don’t hurt her!’ I move to stop them, but Hannah puts her hand on my shoulder and pulls me back.
‘Be still, child. It’s not you,’ Bevins says. ‘It’s the devil in you. I know how hard he struggles.’
He tells Hannah to get Mary and Margaret and Mrs Bragg. ‘She must wear the dress.’
‘Fuck off! I’m not wearing your dress. I want to go home! This is illegal what you’re doing! Let. Go. Of. Me!’ she shouts, voice hoarse with panic. ‘Someone needs to phone the police!’
Bevins shakes his head and they hold her even more firmly. ‘See how hard the demon tries to make itself heard?’
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‘Leave her alone!’ I shout, but this time it’s Father who is angry with me.
‘It’s not your battle,’ he says. ‘She is leading you astray. If you say one more word. One more word . . .’ He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I know what he is threatening. Stripes from the rod which has been dipped in oil to make it hurt even more, like it says in the Bible. I stare at him and don’t move, my heart full of anger.
The women come back and Bevins tells them that they must undress her and make her put the dress back on. The men turn their backs to us. Alex wriggles even more, but four women are much too strong for her. As they pull her trousers off there’s a shriek from Hannah. ‘Dear God! What’s that?’ She’s pointing at Alex’s tattoo. ‘The mark of the beast! The eye!’
‘What?’ Alex kicks her legs. ‘What’s wrong?’
They pull the dress over her head and Bevins looks round. When he sees the tattoo on her ankle his face twists and he crosses himself. ‘See, Brothers. I told you that he walks among us, even to put marks on our flesh. You can’t come in with the eye of evil on your body. This is why it’s all going wrong for you. This is why you are so confused. We must pray that demon out of you.’
‘What are you on about? It’s for protection!’
‘It says that in Mary’s encyclopedia!’ I hear myself say, then bite my lip. I must be silent, I must be silent. I bite my lip till I taste blood.
Mr Bevins puts his hands over his eyes. ‘Cover it up!’
Hannah takes her scarf from around her neck and passes it to Bevins. He kneels down and wraps it around Alex’s ankle. ‘Come, we are going to pray for you. I will ask God to have mercy on you. In these last days we will save you.’
He gestures to the bundle of Alex’s old clothes that Hannah is holding. ‘Make sure you burn them,’ he says.
When we get back to the church everyone is talking restlessly, but the room goes quiet the moment we step through the door.
Everyone stares at Alex. Bevins leads her to the front, where he makes her kneel at the altar. He puts his hands on her head and begins to speak: ‘Here, Lord, is a powerful sinner. So vile and ugly in her thoughts . . .’
He goes on and on about sin. About how awful and terrible Alex is, about how he is asking God to cleanse her and accept her as His own.
Then suddenly his voice changes, and he stands up, holding his arms to the sky, and starts to speak in a deeper, older voice that sounds like someone else entirely.
‘These days are My days. Not like any other days you have seen. Do not look to yesterday. Look to the future, because this new way is not the old. Those who do not want to give up their sin and are fearful, like Gideon’s men. You must not let anything pass your lips that is not blessed. In these last days you must be purified. There are many that would try and divert you from your course. You must hold strong for Me. For these last days, all around will assail you, but you will stay strong.’
And then he folds on to his knees, clutching his hands together as if he’s holding a sword. I know what’s coming now. If the spirit is visiting with us, many will fall to the floor laughing or crying. I did it once. I fell off my chair in the middle of a prayer meeting and Mother said it was because I had been slain in the spirit, although I didn’t feel anything except that my elbow hurt where I banged it on the floor.
‘There are among us still the signs of the devil, Satan clothed in the robes of a stranger. One who is come among us as a wolf in the clothing of sheep.’
He touches Alex on the shoulder and she cries out.
‘Get off me!’ She tries to stand up, but he pushes her back down.
‘And now the spirit is strong amongst us we will defeat this demon in our midst that wants to tempt us away from the glory.’
Then he pushes her forward, hard, so that she falls. ‘See how the devil falls away in the face of the spirit of the Lord!’
‘You’re hurting me!’
‘It is not I who is hurting you!’ he roars. ‘It is the demon inside you!’ And he presses her down to the floor, placing his hands on her back.
She struggles now. ‘Get off me! Let me go!’ She starts to kick with her legs. ‘Pervert!’
‘It’s a strong one!’ he says. ‘Listen to it squeal. Be still, child. Be still.’
And then Father comes over to help him and Mr Protheroe, and together they hold her legs and her arms so she can’t move.
She has started crying now, a loud yelping, still writhing to get out of their grasp. They pray for her in tongues. Watching them, I am frozen. I can see the beads of sweat on Mr Bevins’s brow and Alex’s hot, angry face. I am afraid for her. What if they hurt her more than they’re doing already? I close my eyes and try to pray, but the voices have swollen to a loud dissonance and I can’t think with everyone swaying, muttering, making strange noises, and Alex screaming to be let go.
They carry on for ages, praying in the spirit, until Alex stops shouting and crying and instead is quietly sobbing. Bevins declares a great victory against the forces of evil and stands up stiffly. ‘The visitation of the spirit only comes in times of great darkness,’ he says. ‘To cast out demons and help us to stay strong until the moment of great Rapture is upon us. Let none of us be found wanting. There is nowhere to hide from the truth of the Lord. Nowhere to hide.’
He throws his arms open to the ceiling. Alex is curled up on the floor, her hands over her eyes, breathing hard. I look at Father, who has his eyes closed and is raising his arms to the heavens and I wonder again what it is that he sees up there. I close my eyes and go into the empty part of my mind, which is neither sleep nor waking but more like waiting, where I am in a kind of trance in which the world outside seems very noisy. As if each blade of grass had its own sound, each crackle of a leaf a percussion, each breath of wind its own note, which means I can bear to sit on this chair, still and quiet for a long time, so nothing bad can touch me.
By the time Bevins is finished it is already night. As we emerge from the church the light has faded to a fine line on the horizon and all around has turned to shadows. Everyone is exhausted and my head aches and my mouth is dry. After they finished casting her demon out, Alex fell into a sobbing sleep on the cold floor of the church and Mr Bevins left her there and started going on about how there was so much to prepare for. He said the men were to help him, that the countdown had started, beginning tonight. That we had to say goodbye to New Canaan, imagine we were putting something to bed. And then the twins started crying and became restless, and Mary stood up and said we needed to get them back to the farmhouse and get them fed. But Bevins made her wait another hour while he gave another rambling speech about how it was more important to be right with God than to be fed.
Now Mary walks ahead, quickly, the twins pulling on each hand, whining that they are hungry. It’s a relief to be out in the air again, although it’s now cold and a thin drizzle has set in and I am soon soaked through. The other women walk ahead, carrying the lanterns and talking about the Rapture and about what exactly will happen in the final moments.
‘It’s faith that makes the difference,’ says Hannah. ‘Faith is what allows you to make leaps of the imagination, to really see God.’
Mother used to say that death was just a momentary thing, like passing through a door from one room to the next. That one of the joys of having faith was that there was nothing to be frightened of.
‘Do you think it will hurt?’ Ruth asks.
Hannah laughs. ‘Of course not! He is come to take us home!’
Margaret thinks there will be a fire that will consume us, though it will not be painful because we are faithful. It will be like the saints in the fiery furnace – though the fire burns hot we will feel it like a cool breeze. Unlike the fallen, whose flesh will melt like the wax of a candle, and their screams be heard all the way from the very depths of hell.
Mary Protheroe chides Margaret as she describes this. ‘There are children present,’ she says.
Margaret narrows
her eyes. ‘They are not too young to hear the truth, Sister,’ she says piously. ‘Or to be possessed by demons,’ she adds pointedly. ‘You yourself have said it.’
‘Well, do you think it was appropriate for the service to last all day?’
‘When the men call the faithful it’s not for us to challenge it.’
‘But the boys!’ Her voice catches in her throat. ‘There’s no need for them to sit all day in church! They need to eat, they need fresh air, they need to play. We can’t live on prayers.’
Hannah turns, her sour face looking even meaner. ‘I don’t like the tone of your voice, Mary.’
‘Hannah, I will not starve my own children any longer for the sake of the meetings! Or lock them in the cellar!’ She sounds as if she’s about to cry. ‘I’m sick of this!’ she mutters. ‘It’s got nothing to do with God!’
‘Lies!’ Hannah thunders. ‘Mary. You’re forgetting yourself.’ Hannah’s voice is dense with warning. ‘You should address this with your husband. It’s our duty to be faithful, even into the last days. Aren’t you grateful? We’ve been called to know the hour and the day! Our faith has been rewarded with certainty. You should be preparing yourself for the glory!’
Mary snorts. ‘And how many times have we heard this?’
‘It’s different this time. They have the chapter and verse. It’s been confirmed in three separate prophecies. How can you deny the signs and wonders?’
Mary mutters something under her breath, stooping to pick up Paul, who is complaining about having to walk the distance back to the farmhouse.
Alex walks quietly beside me. Silent, trembling, clutching her arms around herself.
‘You OK?’ I say, touching her on the shoulder, but she shrugs me off, chewing her lip. I’m afraid that she’s angry with me. I feel like it’s my fault she got caught. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You could have warned me they were outside!’ she hisses.
‘I didn’t see them till it was too late!’
‘Now what are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know!’
I want to talk to Father, to ask him if he is sure. It’s all happened too quickly. Now the moment has come, perhaps I will be found wanting. Will I be left behind? I’m not ready for the final judgement. But when I tried to ask him after church he just smiled at me weakly then brushed me away, told me not to worry myself. He’s staying in church with the elders, for a vigil, praying for directions, visions of what we should do next. My head spins.
