by Julia Bell
Alex is walking so slowly she is almost standing still. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get back, it’s raining.’
‘I don’t want to go with them. This place is bullshit,’ she whispers. ‘They want to kill me.’
‘Don’t be silly! No one wants to kill you!’ But her words hit me somewhere deep in my stomach and I don’t want to show her that I’m afraid. I know what they did was not right, but I don’t know how to say it. Instead I say, ‘Well, if you didn’t have a demon in you, then it would not be necessary to chase it out!’ I can hear the words come out of my mouth but it’s as if they belong to someone else.
Her eyes grow wide. ‘You saw what they did to me! You think that’s OK?’
‘No, but . . .’ I say, ashamed and confused.
‘You’re just as bad as them!’
This hurts. I’m not like them, I think. I’m not. But that’s not what I say. ‘You’ve been sent to tempt me away from the glory and then I’ll never see my mother again! You’re disgusting. I wish you’d never come here!’
She stops and looks at me. I can see the hurt in the twist of her lips. I wish I could take the words out of the air and stuff them back into my face before she can hear them, but it’s too late.
‘Screw you,’ she snarls, and she runs on ahead of me.
‘Come back!’ I shout, but my words fall into empty space. All I can see is the jagged silhouettes of gorse and hawthorn and the dim lights of their lanterns just visible on the track ahead.
When we get to the farmhouse Alex refuses to look at me or sit next to me. Her face is the colour of the mashed potato. I feel terrible for what I said. I didn’t mean it. What I wanted to say was, I’m afraid too. But the words came out wrong. Another black mark against me on Judgement Day. I remember Father said once that when the Rapture comes we will see all our actions played out as if in a film and will have to watch and be accountable to God for everything we’ve done. This thought makes the blood in my veins run cold. I am sure I am not good enough for heaven and I will die in fear and torment and burn forever in the lake of fire.
Mary boils up some goats milk and gives it to us. The warmth of it radiates through my body with the comfort of a hug. I’m so hungry I don’t care that usually I can’t stand the strong flavour, and when it’s finished I wish there was more.
Alex stands up and asks to be excused. ‘I need to lie down,’ she says.
Mary nods. ‘Of course. Rebekah, you can put the twins to bed in a moment.’
In the kitchen I can hear her heavy footsteps climbing the stairs.
‘So young. So much sin,’ Hannah says, shaking her head.
‘Hold your judgement, Hannah. There was no need to make such a spectacle of her. She’s only a child,’ says Mary.
‘A child with a demon, nonetheless,’ says Hannah. ‘She broke into Bevins’s cabin! She was possessed!’
‘Hmmm,’ Mary says. ‘So they say.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, she’s obviously upset, but that’s not the same as being possessed.’
‘But her tattoo!’ Margaret says. ‘It’s the sign of the devil!’
Mary brushes her hand in the air. ‘Or perhaps it’s just a tattoo.’
‘It’s not for us to question, Mary,’ Margaret says with a dangerous voice, as she stalks out of the room.
Mary gets up to see to the dishes, but she’s angry. I can tell by the way that she clatters plates in the sink. It’s unusual for her to be this outspoken. Ruth sits quietly with her hands in her lap and stares into the empty space as if she’s waiting for something to happen.
I take the twins upstairs. The attic is quiet. Through the doorway to my room I can see the shadow of Alex’s body in the camp bed, her back to me.
The twins are restless and will not settle; they have already slept too much in church. They demand one story after another and Paul keeps getting out of bed wanting to play. All the while I can see the shape of Alex’s back in the bed and all I want to do is to press myself into it, to feel the warmth between us, tell her I’m sorry, promise that together we’ll make another plan.
I can hear noises downstairs, doors opening and closing, the heavy tread of Micah climbing the stairs. It’s odd that even though the Rapture is supposed to be happening really soon, no one seems excited about it.
Finally the twins fall asleep and I get up stiffly and creep into my bedroom. I go over to the camp bed and gently touch her sleeping figure, only something is not right. It’s too soft . . . too . . . I realize I’m not pressing into a human body but into pillows and blankets rolled up.
I look round the room, but it’s obvious she’s not here. She must have sneaked out when no one was watching. I go back downstairs, quietly in case I wake anyone. If Mary finds me I will say I was thirsty and wanted a glass of water. But the kitchen is empty now and there’s no sign of anyone in the tack room. I push the door, but it doesn’t budge. I wonder for a moment if it’s locked, but it’s just swollen and stuck to the frame and it won’t give without forcing it, which will make a noise. I press my shoulder against it and the wood squeaks loudly. I hold my breath, but no one comes. I push again, and this time it opens with a quiet pop.
The night is black and there are no stars. I can’t see even my hand before me, although I know I’m still in the yard from the crunch of my feet on the stones.
I stand still and listen. In the dark you can hear further than you can see. Across the yard is the barn where the chickens are kept and the bales of winter hay. In the spring the sick lambs are put there, especially the ones who come early and need feeding from a bottle. I have seen the lambs being born, small and wet and covered in slime. Hardly able to breathe, eyes half closed, almost dead, until their mother licks them into life. Father says we are the lambs of God, that we are in His flock, that He cares for every one of us like his own. If this is so, then I can’t imagine he will leave Alex behind. Surely we’re on hallowed ground, here on our island, and all will be saved, even me, who has had bad thoughts against Mr Bevins, and Alex too, in spite of her tattoo.
I pick my way across the yard until I reach the barn. I feel along the wall to the door; it’s ajar. I slip inside and stand and listen to the silence, small snuffles from the chicken coop, the creak of a beam, the thin whistle of the wind. I can just make out piles of hay against the skylight. I’m sure I can hear something breathing.
Suddenly there’s a hand across my face, an arm across my chest. I scream but make no sound. I use my elbow to try to escape, bring my arm back, hard, into ribs.
‘Ow!’ Just as she lets me go I realize it is Alex. ‘That hurt!’
‘Sorry.’ I’m relieved that it’s her, though I can’t see her, only the outline of her hair.
‘How did you get out?’
She flashes on a torch, blinding me. ‘Front door. Did they send you to get me?’
‘No! I wanted to say sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. It was my fault you got into trouble.’
She laughs. ‘It’s all right. I get it. I have this kind of effect on people. I know. People hate me.’
‘I like you.’
‘Whatever.’ She jumps away from me up the tower of hay bales. ‘Come up here,’ she says. I can’t see where she’s gone, only the beam of her torch flashing through the air. Mary is always cautioning the boys against playing in the barn. The bales are dangerous, she says, they are big and heavy and should one fall on us and crush us we would likely die. I hesitate. ‘Come on.’ She shines the torch so I can see the way – she has made a path through to the top.
The hay is prickly, but at least it’s warm. They make hay from plants which have dried in the sun, turn them into bales using the machine on the back of the tractor. This is last summer’s hay and it smells sweet, of sunshine and warmth and of my mother. I want to drink it in, hold it inside me forever in case I should ever forget.
I climb up, digging my feet and hands into the bales, and when I get to the top I’m breathless. ‘You
don’t deserve what happened to you in church.’
‘They’ll kill me. You know they will. This dress.’ She shudders. ‘I wish I’d never come here!’
‘But the Rapture is coming! Don’t you want to stay for that?’ I suddenly, urgently, want her to be saved. ‘At least be here when it happens and we can go to the glory forever and be with Jesus and all the angels.’
She’s silent for a moment. She has planted the torch in the hay, its beam shooting upward between us. She looks puzzled, not unkind. ‘I’ll take my chances.’
I don’t know what to say to that. She’s brave, I think. She’ll stand there at the gates and she’ll ask questions, she’ll rage. She won’t be taken meek as a lamb like me.
‘I’m sorry.’ I reach out my hand. She takes it and squeezes it. ‘What I said before, I didn’t mean it.’
‘What’s happening here is wrong. You do know that, don’t you?’
I don’t know what to say to this. All I know is that when I’m with her the world seems to make sense and doesn’t give me a headache the way it does in church or when I’m thinking about the end of the world and what a bad and sinful person I really am, or when Mr Bevins is praying over me. I don’t feel sinful when I’m with her. All this and more, but I can’t say it. Words seem to be stuck somewhere between my thoughts and my voice, and all I can do is smile at her until she wrinkles her nose and laughs and sticks her tongue out at me. But instead of making me happy, something in me is then suddenly very sad, and I don’t know why. I swallow down a hard lump in my throat.
‘What are we going to do?’
She turns and looks at me seriously. ‘I don’t know.’
I feel the fear again, a hard twist in my guts.
‘Come here.’ She puts her arm around me and I curl myself into her. We lie back in the nest that we’ve made and she pulls some sacking across us like a blanket.
‘We need a plan.’
I think about this for a moment. ‘I know.’
‘Can’t we get the boat out?’
‘How would we make it?’ I say, shivering. In that small boat, against that rough sea. I don’t want to tell her that I don’t know how to row. ‘It’ll be dangerous.’
‘No shit.’
I press my body into hers. If only we could stay here like this forever, then nothing bad would ever have to happen. She knits her fingers in with mine, so our arms are twined like branches growing together. Along her arms are silvery traces of scratches.
‘What happened to your arms?’
She flinches like she’s embarrassed. ‘I got sad,’ she says. ‘It made it easier to deal with.’
I trace my finger along the length of one scar that runs nearly all the way up her forearm. ‘Sad about what?’
‘My mother. I don’t do it any more.’
‘You did it to yourself?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Oh.’ I can’t imagine wanting to hurt myself like that. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I say.
‘That’s what everyone says. But it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.’
We lie there in silence. I wish I knew what to say to make her feel better. ‘Can we just pretend?’
‘Pretend what?’
‘That we’re not here? Just for now? Can’t we make a plan in the morning?’
She leans on her elbow and looks at me. ‘Where would you rather be?’
‘Everywhere, anywhere. I want to see everything! Monkeys and elephants, Africa and all the world’s tropical places.’ I imagine lush forests like the pictures in the encyclopedia, and from the shampoo bottle when I was little. ‘I’d like to see forests and cities, Paris, New York . . . maybe we can go together,’ I say.
She touches me on the nose with her finger. ‘Yeah, why not! I want to go to America. To New York and San Francisco. We can hire a car and drive it coast to coast.’
‘Oh, and I want to go to Zanzibar.’ Because it’s the most exotic-sounding place I can think of.
She laughs.
‘OK. And what do you want to do in Zanzibar?’ Her face seems too close all of a sudden.
I’m not really sure how it happens, because there’s no pause or gap between the action of her getting closer and us kissing and I couldn’t tell you which one of us started it because that seems to be what we really wanted to say to each other all along and there’s a tingle that runs through my body and I feel sort of dizzy.
‘Is that what happens in Zanzibar?’
‘Dunno.’ She laughs. ‘I’ve never been.’
We don’t say anything for a while, just lie there in the dark, quietly. My body trembles. No one has kissed me like that before. ‘Was that sinful?’ I ask her.
‘What do you think?’
My whole body tingles, suddenly alive. And in my head it’s as if someone has flipped a switch to illuminate a dark room, and I can’t help myself but I start to cry. It comes out like a sneeze and then a snuffle and then a loud sob.
‘Hey.’ She leans on her elbow and looks at me. ‘Hey, it’s OK.’ She takes the sleeve of her dress and wipes my cheek with it. ‘I hate this freaking dress.’
‘You look really weird in it,’ I say, half laughing, half crying. It’s true, she does. It makes her look awkward and small when she is strong and powerful.
‘No weirder than you. Anyway, what did they do to my clothes?’
‘I don’t know. I think Hannah took them. He said to burn them.’
‘I found some letters in his cabin.’
‘Letters?’
‘Yeah, addressed to you. I took one. It’s in my trouser pocket.’
I can’t think who would write to me.
We lie quietly for a while, spooned into each other until it starts to get colder. ‘What are we going to do?’ I ask. The question is a persistent nag. We can’t just stay here.
‘We’re going to make a plan!’ she says brightly, but there is something brittle in her voice. And she starts to talk about the boat and how if we can just get out to sea we will be spotted by someone, eventually.
‘But you get seasick,’ I say, remembering the journey to get here.
‘S’OK. I can deal with that.’
But I’m not convinced. There’s a shadow in my mind that has the shape of a coming thunderstorm that won’t be outrun, and we are holding hands so tight my fingers have started to numb.
SIXTEEN
REBEKAH
I wake suddenly. It’s light, and I’m cold under the hessian sacking, and my clothes are damp. Alex is already awake. She turns to me and presses a finger to her lips. I feel kind of shy looking at her now. There’s noise in the barn. I slowly roll on to my belly and peep over the edge. The front door is open and Micah Protheroe stands there whistling at Job the sheepdog.
He is herding sheep into a pen made out of hay bales, the one we normally use for the sick ewes. The sheep are panicked, bleating and trampling over each other.
‘What are they doing?’ Alex mouths at me.
‘I don’t know.’ I can’t imagine why he’s doing this. We don’t usually bring them in until winter. Maybe the weather is going to turn. The sheep are our life. Wool for clothes and bedding, meat to eat and lambs to sell in the spring. My heart pounds in my chest and I press myself into the hay.
When all the sheep are in the barn, Mr Bevins comes in and stands there with Micah Protheroe and Jonathan and Daniel and Gideon.
‘Let us pray,’ Mr Bevins says. The men close their eyes and bow their heads.
‘Bless us, oh Lord, for our faithfulness. See that we are doing this out of thanks for Your divine prophecy. Thank You for showing us the time and the day. We are striving to be ready. In Your name . . .’
‘Amen,’ Jonathan bellows loudly at the end.
Then Bevins starts talking about how the Lord will be happy with this sacrifice as the evidence of our commitment, but that it is not enough.
‘We must be cleansed. We must cleanse the whole island! All the goats and chickens! All the green
houses! We must leave nothing behind! And we must fast, keep our bodies pure, our spirits pure! When we enter the gates of heaven we want there to be not a mark upon us. We will have one last feast, one last supper, then I want everyone in the church on their knees waiting for heaven.’
There are grunts of assent, loud amens.
‘And the girl. Let us pray for guidance: Oh Lord, guide our hands in these last hours, as we look to make righteous our house.’
There is a long silence. ‘Righteous, amen,’ says Micah.
‘In Your blessed house,’ echoes Jonathan.
The hay is making my nose itch and I suddenly want to sneeze. I hold my breath until my face turns purple and I need to cough and I can hear nothing but blood in my ears.
I want to talk to Father, ask him if he is sure the Rapture is coming. We have been good, we have already prayed and fasted, we have been lucky to be given such a sign from heaven that the Rapture is near, but surely we do not need to take it so far? So soon?
At last I hear the sound of the door banging, bolts being pulled across, and I breathe and sneeze and cough all at the same time.
‘Shhhh!’ Alex nudges me in the ribs.
I lie and listen to my own breath. The barn smells of the sheep. They rustle and bleat.
‘They’re going to kill them,’ says Alex.
‘What?’
‘The sheep.’
My heart sinks. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Weren’t you listening? They’re going to kill everything. We have to get out of here.’ Her eyes are wide with fear.
‘What about me?’
‘You’re going to the Rapture, remember?’ she says, raising her eyebrows sarcastically.
‘I don’t want to go.’ Saying it aloud suddenly makes it true. ‘I want to go with you.’ I can deal with the Tribulations, I am sure of it, especially if I am with her.
