The Dark Light

by Julia Bell

  ‘Right,’ she says, ‘but you know it’s not going to even happen? And then everyone here will starve.’

  Her words give me a chill. I shiver.

  We wait a little longer, until we are sure there’s no one around, then climb down from the top of the hay.

  Alex peers through a hole in the corrugated iron. ‘They’re still in the yard,’ she says quietly.

  I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here without being seen.

  ‘Isn’t there another way out?’ She looks carefully around the barn – there’s a hole in the roof, just above us. ‘What about up there?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. We’ll die. It’s too high.’

  ‘Not if we use that.’ She points at a wooden ladder that is leaning against the hay. ‘Come on.’ She leaps back up into the hay and grabs the ladder. If she plants it in the top hay bale it just reaches the gap in the roof. Before I can say be careful she has climbed up it and through the gap and all I can see are her legs sticking out. She reappears almost straight away.

  ‘There are men in the field,’ she says. ‘They’re building a massive bonfire or something. We can’t go now, they’ll see us.’ She jumps back down.

  ‘Shit,’ I say.

  Alex laughs. ‘What did you say?!’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You totally just swore! You so did!’ She sounds triumphant. ‘Say it again!’

  ‘No! It came out by accident.’

  ‘Go on, say it again.’

  ‘Shit!’ I whisper. ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit.’ Five times. I wonder if I’ll have to do some kind of penance for that. But it’s not like I’m saying God, or Jesus, or the other bad word beginning with f that Alex says. Anyway, something in me doesn’t care. Like the tear in a piece of fabric suddenly made worse from pulling, I can almost hear the rip. I start giggling, and I can’t stop; it’s a relief, like inside me is all this tension, fizzing out over the edge.

  ‘Shhhhh.’

  I hide my face in the crook of my elbow. But I’m not laughing because it’s funny, but because if I don’t laugh maybe I would scream.

  We sit in the hay and wait for ages. Alex makes a plan. We’re going to make our way down to the harbour and take the boat, get it out to sea, then let off a flare or something. ‘We just need to get someone’s attention.’

  ‘But what if nobody comes?’

  ‘Well, that’s where you’ve got to have faith.’ She winks. ‘Or you can always stay here?’

  ‘No way!’

  She goes up the ladder again to look. I don’t know what time it is, or even if anyone has noticed we’re missing. Part of me wonders why no one is even searching.

  ‘It’s OK, they’ve gone,’ she says, hoisting herself up. Her feet clatter on the roof, the noise echoing around the barn. I climb up the ladder, careful not to look down; the height makes my muscles tremble. When I put my head out into the air the wind is suddenly cold and fresh. I can see that Alex is right – in the field they have begun to build a huge fire out of scraps of wood and brush.

  ‘If we leave the ladder, they’ll know you were in here,’ I say.

  Alex is crouching down. She holds her fingers to her lips. ‘Too late,’ she says. And I hear a noise beneath me. Someone has opened the barn doors. ‘Quick.’

  I climb up the last rung of the ladder and step out on to the roof. It doesn’t seem very safe. There are large patches of rust where the metal looks too thin to stand on, and it makes a loud creaking when we walk.

  I follow her, half running, half sliding, until we gather so much momentum it is inevitable that we’re going to fall off the edge, and suddenly I’m in the air and falling and I can’t help but cry out in fear. Then the bounce of soft soil, grass, the smell of peelings, eggshells. The compost heap. I land awkwardly on my wrist.

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘How did you know that was there?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Alex laughs. ‘I must have a guardian angel. Or maybe that’s the devil in me.’

  ‘More likely the devil.’ The voice is stark. Loud and startling. Mr Bevins. With Father and Thomas. Oh no.

  Bevins looks at us, from one to the other the air around him seeming to crackle. He says nothing for a long time. Staring at us with his intense blue eyes, he looks more like a wild animal than a person.

  ‘Rebekah, are you a servant of the Lord?’ he asks eventually in a quiet voice. ‘Do you believe in your saviour who died for your sins? Do you believe you are blessed with the gift of eternal life?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you renounce the devil and all his works?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I look at Alex. Run, I want to say. Run. She moves, but Thomas grabs her. Holding her by the arms so she can’t run, although she struggles.

  ‘Well, that’s not what you are doing, is it?’

  He turns to Alex. ‘You. Come with me. We need to talk.’

  ‘No!’ I hear someone say. Then realize it’s me. ‘You can’t take her!’

  Mr Bevins spins round and stares at me. ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because she’s done nothing wrong!’ I say. ‘She just wants to go home!’

  ‘So why were you in there then?!’ He points to the barn. ‘If you want to go home, then why aren’t you helping the women? Your home is not here! Your home is with the Lord in heaven.’

  ‘To hell with the Lord in heaven!’ I say, before I can think. ‘I’m sick of this place!’

  Mr Bevins flinches. ‘Rebekah, what is the fifth commandment?’

  I bow my head. ‘Honour thy father and mother.’

  ‘Are you honouring your father now?’

  ‘No,’ I mumble.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘No!’ I shout.

  I look at him and then at Father, whose face is angry and serious. It’s as if he has forgotten that I’m his daughter. Instead I am like some piece in a puzzle which must fit where he wills it. I dig my nails into my hands. I hate him, and even more I hate Mr Bevins for carrying Father along with him.

  Alex starts to struggle again, kicking out and biting Thomas on the hand. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘See, she’s all Satan’s,’ says Bevins impassively. ‘And you –’ he stares at me – ‘she’s corrupted you.’

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Alex says.

  He shakes his head. ‘Too late!’ He comes towards me as if he is going to hit me, but he only brings his hands together with a loud slap that makes me jump.

  ‘Take her,’ he says, nodding at Alex, ‘to the Solitary. And fetch Jonathan. And her.’ He looks at me and shakes his head. ‘You will need to deal with her –’ he looks at my father – ‘bringing despair on the house of the Lord. How easy it is for those of faith to be tempted away. It is as it was written . . .’ And he goes on and on, spouting out verse after verse, white flecks of spit gathering at the corners of his mouth.

  I catch Alex’s eye. It’s OK. I mouth at her. I’ll help you. She nods, like she understands.

  SEVENTEEN

  ALEX

  They pushed me through the door and slammed it shut behind me. The sound of my voice bounced off the walls. Please. I banged on the door with my fists, bruising my knuckles, I scratched the floor, I tried to climb to the roof, but there was nothing to stand on to get me high enough up. Let me go.

  ‘What you have,’ he said, ‘is a demon! We have to break it!’

  ‘Fuck off! You can’t keep me prisoner!’

  ‘It’s not you that speaks, Alex, it’s your demon. Just submit. And you won’t ever have to be afraid again. Jesus is here to help you cast out his enemies! All you have to do is believe. Believe. The world we live in is not real, Alex. It’s nothing but a mirage, full of phantoms! You can’t see it but I can see the glory that waits for you on the other side. You’re a miserable sinner, all you have to do is believe it and repent and you will be forgiven. Repent!’

  I turned away from him, and put my hands over my ears, my fear giving way to a kind of blank exhaustion. I don�
��t even know when they left, except suddenly there was no one outside the door and I realized the loud shouting sound was all in my head.

  There was a crappy bed which was really just some planks laid out over some bricks and a thin blanket. In the corner there was a bucket for a toilet and a bottle of water, but it looked murky and smelled wrong and I didn’t want to drink it.

  But then the day died and it got dark and there was no light and I was thirsty and all I could do was lie under the blanket with my eyes closed. And then I prayed. Dear God, if You’re there, then get me out of here. I’m sorry I never really believed in You. But I felt unconvincing and half-hearted. If there was a God, then He would know that, wouldn’t he? That I was only doing this because I was desperate and that I’d never really believed in Him anyway.

  Then, in the morning, they came to get me.

  EIGHTEEN

  REBEKAH

  We walk together over to the lake. I can see the clouds, the rocks of the Devil’s Seat reflected in the water. The wind blows across the surface making the reflection shimmer and distort. As we get closer I can see my own pleated shape, my hands clenched into fists. Next to me my father, thin, ghostly. I wonder why he wanted to come here. I can’t believe they caught us. We should have waited till it was dark at least. I should have reasoned with Alex, I should have realized they would be looking. But something about being with her makes me believe that everything is safe, that anything is possible, even when it’s not.

  Father holds me by the arm so tightly it hurts. ‘Rebekah . . .’ He starts, then stops.

  ‘What?’

  He shakes me roughly. ‘You will not disrespect me in front of Mr Bevins.’

  ‘Or what?’

  He looks troubled. ‘Or there will be consequences. You will be left behind. Is that what you want?’ He lets go of me and stands looking out at the water with his hands in his pockets. I think of what that man said on Mission Week about wanting to go to hell if we were the kind of people that would be in heaven, but I hold my tongue.

  He sighed. ‘I know it’s hard for you sometimes since . . .’ He doesn’t even say her name. ‘But we’re so close to the end now.’

  I want to tell him that I don’t care how close we are, that I want a chance to get away from this place, that I want to see the world with Alex, before it all burns up. I want the kind of life she has – exciting, carefree. That it’s not fair. He had his chance to make his choices. Now I want mine.

  ‘I haven’t been paying you enough attention, I know, but there is so much to do here before we go. And you’ve been spending too much time with Alex.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’ But I bite my lip. ‘What is he going to do to her?’

  Father tuts. ‘No one is going to do anything to her. We are just going to help her get to the glory. No one left behind.’

  But what if I want to be left behind? I think. Maybe they will all get Raptured and me and Alex will be left behind and we can run away then. Then there won’t be anyone to stop us.

  ‘Will we see Mother?’

  He won’t look at me. ‘Rebekah, you really need to behave. She . . .’ He stops. He looks as if he is about to say something else, but thinks better of it. ‘Mr Bevins has been sent to us to lead us home. Where have all these questions come from all of a sudden?’

  ‘Nowhere.’ I mutter at my shoes.

  ‘Come on, Mary needs you in the house. There’s lots to do.’

  When I get back to the house it’s obvious everyone has been talking about me. No one will look me in the eye. Father tells Ruth and Margaret to look after me, that ‘she must not leave your sight’. So they are more like jailors now than Sisters, which means one of them sits with me all the time when I’m not helping Mary with the chores. Today the women are clearing out the tack room and cleaning all the boots and doing all the laundry. A pointless job if we are to be Raptured, especially as it takes so long to heat the water, but apparently Bevins wants the place pristine.

  Hannah says she’s relieved that Alex has been removed from among us. ‘At last we can concentrate on the task in hand instead of being distracted by that she-devil.’

  I’m not to be left alone even for one minute. Even though no one has said why, I know it’s because they want to stop me seeing her. I know Bevins has her there with the others on shift, praying for her, but I don’t see why. She has no demon in her any more than I do.

  Hannah and Margaret read Bible verses and chatter about what will happen to those who don’t go to heaven in the Rapture and how they will suffer horrible torments at the hands of the Antichrist, who will rule over the whole world for seven years.

  ‘He will come from Islam or China,’ says Hannah definitively.

  Alex: thoughts of her are like a constant beat that pulses beneath all my other thoughts. I feel sick thinking about what Bevins will be doing to her. I don’t want her to be hurt or afraid. My mind races through plans. I will go and rescue her, and I make silent petitions in my head, asking God to permit the weather to be fine enough to get the boat out and to help me navigate the sea and I promise to be a great witness, even in the Tribulations. Once we’re free we will go travelling together and see the whole world, tropical forests and deserts and cities and Zanzibar. And I think about how I want us to kiss each other again and sleep warm and nested next to each other, until it all becomes such a whirl of colour and ideas that the fragile egg of my heart is almost ready to burst.

  While we are cleaning the men are still building the huge bonfire in the field, like Elijah the Prophet of God in the Book of Kings. Margaret reads the story while we clean. How Elijah shows King Ahab who is the one true God. When Elijah goes to King Ahab, he makes all the false prophets try to set their sacrifices on fire, dancing and cutting themselves and scattering blood on their pyres, but nothing happens. Elijah makes his altar wet, even digging a trench around it and filling it with water and he prays that God will accept his sacrifice. Suddenly the fire of the Lord comes down and consumes Elijah’s sacrifice, a fire so hot that even the rocks are melted, proving to the false prophets who is the one true God. And afterwards Elijah takes the false prophets to the brook of Kishon and kills them all, smashing their heads with stones until the river runs red with the blood of the unbelievers.

  ‘The Lord’s justice,’ Margaret says, her eyes greedy with revenge. ‘This is what will happen to all the unbelievers when we’re gone. All the people who ever laughed at us, or took the name of God in vain!’

  ‘Amen!’ says Mrs Bragg.

  In the afternoon, when my back hurts from scrubbing mud off smelly old boots, Mr Bevins returns with Mr Bragg, who has just come out of the Solitary. He is thinner, paler, conspicuously sorry, loudly telling anyone who will listen that Mr Bevins has saved him and how grateful he is to be ready for these final days.

  I watch Mr Bevins carefully. I hope he will say something about Alex, and where she is, how she is, but he doesn’t and I daren’t ask, in case he singles me out for special prayers and attention. Instead he inspects our work. He takes some of the boots that Ruth has cleaned and says that they aren’t shiny enough.

  ‘Do it again,’ he says. ‘All work done for the Lord must be perfect.’

  Ruth’s face pinches but she doesn’t say anything.

  When Mr Bevins goes no one says a word, but we start again on the boots, polishing them, one by one, until I can see my face in the shine.

  For supper Mary has cooked up a thin soup with some vegetables and scraps. Mr Bevins has said food is impure, that there is no need for it now we are going to go to heaven. A plan is formulating in my mind. In four days, according to Mr Bevins, the Rapture will be upon us, but I won’t be Raptured. Not with them. They can go without me, I have decided, and then Alex and I will be free to be together. With no one watching us or interfering.

  The world: out there beyond the sea. I will read Mary’s encyclopedia from cover to cover, so I know what to expect. I will know what it is that Alex knows. If Alex has lived
out there, then it surely can’t be so bad. This island is not my world; though I live here, it’s Mr Bevins’s world, and Father’s. After all this time, my home suddenly seems to me like a foreign country. I long to leave it behind.

  When the men come in to eat there is a fuss in the kitchen about who will get to serve. Apparently it’s Hannah’s turn, but she’s not back yet. The women used to argue about this all the time, until Bevins insisted on a rota. Now Margaret has worked out that there won’t be enough meals for us all to have our turn before the Rapture so someone will have to stand down. I listen to their dreary discussion, knowing Alex would think this was hilarious. I’m not going with you, I think. Idiots.

  I play with the twins, who are scribbling with pencils on an old book that Mary has found. Paul draws shapes that he scrawls over and over until they are just hard black marks on the paper. He says they are devils, at which Mary frowns.

  Everyone is here except Alex and Naomi. I feel as if I have my heart in my throat. I have to know where they have taken her. I think I will ask Mary if I can catch her on her own, but I needn’t have worried. Hannah soon tells everyone.

  ‘She’s gone to the Solitary to pray.’

  No.

  ‘The sin has begun its journey out. But the demon is a tough one. It’s so deeply embedded.’

  The women nod, seriously. All except Mary, I notice. All day she has been quiet and withdrawn, watchful.

  ‘How has it been drawn out?’ Margaret asks.

  ‘There has been a confession. Of unnatural passions.’ Here she stares at me, hard. I blush and look away.

  ‘Like we didn’t already know,’ mutters Margaret.

  ‘Indeed,’ says Hannah. ‘But Bevins is pleased. He says we are winning. Tonight we will be holding a vigil. Don’t worry, we will carry her over the threshold.’

  I feel like all of this is being directed at me. I look down at the paper and realize I have pressed through with the pencil, leaving a jagged gash on the page.

  I am pointedly not invited to the vigil. Neither is Mary. When I try to speak to Mr Bevins he looks at me as if I’m not there and walks on past me.