by Rebecca Wait
2
When the red-haired girl and her mother did come back three weeks later, they had cases and bags with them.
Moses had felt certain something was about to happen because the grown-ups made them move bedrooms the day before, so that Ruth could move into their old room in the big house. That meant Ruth’s bedroom in the small house would be empty.
Now Moses and Peter were sharing with the other boys. They had a mattress on the floor because Jonathan and Ezra wouldn’t give up the bunk beds, but Moses didn’t mind. He and Peter went top-to-tail for more space. He found it comforting to wake from a nightmare to find his face pressed against the warmth of his brother’s calves.
Another reason he knew something was coming: the wind had dropped. Everything was very still and soft, and it excited Moses with its strangeness. Even in summer the wind hardly rested, the breeze rippling over the heather and grass like a snake. When the wind was at its strongest, you had to stay inside. It could carry you off your feet, and make the tops of the trees bend and jerk. Sometimes it sounded like a huge fire, rushing and roaring around you. They always knew when it was coming because the white cloud bank built at the edge of the forest. Then they retreated inside, closed all the windows and doors and listened to the wind as it burst against the house.
Once when Moses was very young, the wind picked him up and threw him against the side of the barn. When he woke up, he’d been taken inside and everyone was praying. Moses had never seen his father cry before. They asked Moses if he had seen the face of God but Moses couldn’t remember. Perhaps he had whilst he was sleeping.
The prophet said, ‘Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, I would show you God’s glory?’
Only a true prophet could raise a child from the dead. Elijah had done it once; so had Elisha. Now Nathaniel.
Where the wind had gone now, Moses did not know. God might have rolled it up in the palm of His hand. The long grass on the moors appeared to be sleeping. Moses watched and waited, knowing God was preparing the way.
When he saw Judith getting out of the car again, he had to force himself to stay still and not run over to her. She didn’t seem angry this time. She was frowning, but looked as though she was deep in thought. Perhaps she was reflecting upon God’s glory. The woman with brown hair went straight into the small house with the prophet. Moses wanted to go over to Judith but he felt too shy. He had to watch as Mary and Abigail claimed her, taking her bags and leading her off to the big house. Moses trailed up the stairs after them, keeping at a safe distance. He stopped outside the door of the girls’ room and listened to what they were saying.
‘This is your bed,’ said Mary’s voice. ‘And you can put your things here. We share all our clothes.’
‘Even knickers?’ Judith said. In the corridor, Moses felt himself blushing.
‘No. Not underwear,’ Mary said, her voice chilly. ‘But dresses and blouses we share. And tights.’
‘I want to wear my own clothes,’ Judith said.
‘You can’t,’ Abigail said, but she sounded kinder than Mary. ‘They’re going to throw them away.’
Moses pictured Judith’s scowl but didn’t dare look round the door.
‘These are the books we have,’ Abigail said. ‘You can share them now.’
A silence.
‘I’m not interested in Bible stories,’ Judith said at last. ‘And flower books. I have my own books, but he wouldn’t let me bring them.’
‘They were probably full of sin,’ Mary said.
Judith didn’t reply to this. After a moment, she said, ‘Why can’t we wear trousers? I want my jeans back.’
‘Girls don’t wear trousers,’ Abigail said.
‘That’s stupid.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Mary said, ‘or the devil will come for you.’
Moses waited in the barn with the others whilst Judith and her mother were taken into the prayer room. Jonathan and Peter were sitting with their backs against opposite walls, bouncing a ball between them, but Ezra kept deliberately getting in the way, so the game became keeping the ball away from Ezra. Abigail and Mary had retreated into the corner to talk in hushed voices.
‘If they were chosen all along,’ Jonathan said, hurling the ball over Ezra’s head, ‘why weren’t they in the Ark already?’
It was a bad throw, and it hit the wall next to Peter and bounced towards Moses. Moses caught it without really meaning to, and threw it to Peter, who tossed it back to him again. Excited to be included, Moses threw it carefully, underarm, to Jonathan.
‘You sound like you’re whispering,’ Ezra said to Jonathan. He was out of breath and angry, but Moses could see it was about the game, not about what Jonathan had said. ‘You sound like the devil’s speaking through you.’
‘I just wondered,’ Jonathan said quickly. ‘I wasn’t whispering.’
‘It must have been what God wanted,’ Moses said, to help him out. ‘He wanted them to take longer to get here.’
‘So might there be more chosen people out there?’ Jonathan said.
Moses was pleased to see Jonathan was looking at him for an answer. ‘God might not have told the prophet yet.’
This seemed to satisfy Jonathan, but Ezra said, ‘You don’t know anything, Moses. You’re marked by the devil.’
The others were quiet now. No one was looking at Moses, which was good, because he felt his face going red, the good side matching the bad side. Jonathan threw the ball to Ezra, who threw it to Peter. Moses hovered for a while in case he was included again, but the others ignored him.
He went to sit by himself in the opposite corner to Mary and Abigail, drawing up his knees and wrapping his arms round them. It gave him some comfort, a bit like being hugged. He wished he could go and find his mother because he liked to talk to her best, but they’d said he was too old to do that now.
From where he was sitting, he could still hear the boys’ conversation.
‘God sent her as a reward for the prophet’s struggles,’ Ezra was saying. When Peter made a scoffing noise, Ezra added, ‘It’s true. I heard my mother say it. And she’s young.’
‘Esther’s young, too,’ Peter said.
‘Yes, but the Lord closed her womb,’ Ezra said.
They all fell silent at this. Moses, too, considered the matter. They had never been told what Esther had done to deserve this punishment. Moses’ mother had said to him once it was the greatest affliction for a woman, and although Moses had barely understood the word ‘affliction’, it fixed in his mind as something mysterious and ancient and sad.
All the same, he sometimes envied Esther. Her punishment was invisible, but he took his everywhere he went, the stain on his face that the others no longer noticed but never forgot.
When Judith and her mother came out of the prayer room with the prophet, Moses was waiting outside the door.
The prophet said, ‘Hello, Moses.’
Moses said hello back. It was thrilling to be spoken to by the prophet.
Then the prophet said, ‘Don’t stare, Moses,’ so Moses directed his eyes to the floor.
The prophet said to Judith’s mother, ‘Let’s go and get you settled in,’ and she nodded. She looked back at Judith and said, ‘Go and play with the others now, Judith. OK? I’ll be back soon.’
Judith stood where she was. She said, ‘I don’t want to.’
Her mother said, ‘Judith—’
And Judith said over the top of her, ‘I want to stay with you.’
Her mother hovered where she was and Moses started to worry he would lose his chance. But then the prophet said, in a sharper voice than before, ‘You can’t take up all your mum’s time, Judith. She has things to do. You’ll see her again soon, so there’s no need to worry.’ Moses thought it was kind of Nathaniel to add the last part. The prophet was always kind. It was painful to him to punish people, but better to do that than to give up their souls to the devil.
Moses was so busy thinking about the prophet’s kindness that
he almost didn’t hear him say, ‘You’ll look after Judith, won’t you, Moses?’
He caught the words just in time, and swelled with pride. ‘I will.’
‘Good lad,’ the prophet said, and for a moment his hand rested lightly on the top of Moses’ head. Moses felt the love of God moving within him, despite his sin, despite his mark.
Then the prophet and Judith’s mother went up the stairs together, his hand on her back, and Moses and Judith were left alone together in the hallway.
Moses searched for a suitable conversation topic. He said, ‘Do lots of people in Gehenna have hair like yours?’
‘What the fuck’s Gehenna?’ Judith said.
‘Gehenna is the burning place,’ Moses said. ‘The valley of the son of Hinnom. What’s the Fuck?’
Judith paused thoughtfully for a moment, then said, ‘Why don’t you ask him? Ask Nathaniel. He’ll explain it better than me.’
Moses watched her carefully. He sensed a trap, but wasn’t certain of its nature. He said, checking for her reaction, ‘I don’t think I will ask him.’
Judith shrugged and seemed to lose interest.
Moses said, ‘You’re not like Mary and Abigail.’
She didn’t answer.
He said, ‘Are other girls in Gehenna like you, or like them?’
‘Go away,’ Judith said.
‘Do you want me to show you the forest?’
‘No.’
Still he lingered. ‘Be careful if you go for a walk on the moors. You have to watch out for bogs and the devil. You can drown in a bog.’
She frowned. ‘I hate the moors.’
‘Why?’
‘They’re ugly.’
Moses considered this. He didn’t think they were ugly, but he didn’t know what Judith was comparing them with. Besides, when you knew something as well as he knew the moors, it was hard to see it properly so you could explain it to someone else.
He said, ‘Would you like to see the river, which is on the other side of the forest?’
‘No.’
Moses thought for a bit longer. He could see he was approaching this from the wrong angle. ‘What would you like to do?’
‘I’d like,’ Judith said, ‘to go home.’
‘This is your home,’ he said. ‘It’s much nicer than Gehenna.’
‘Shut up!’ she said. ‘How would you know, anyway? You haven’t been. You don’t even know what you’re talking about, you stupid freak.’
Moses didn’t know what a freak was, but it didn’t sound complimentary. He said, ‘If you fall into a bog on the moors, you’ll drown.’
She looked at him. ‘Shut up. You already said that.’
‘I’m answering your question,’ Moses said. ‘About how I know what Gehenna is like. It’s the same way that I know bogs can drown you. I’ve never actually seen anyone drown in a bog. But I know it’s true.’
Judith didn’t reply for a while. When she did, all she said was, ‘Just go away. Go away, OK?’ And when he didn’t move, ‘Alright. I will, then,’ and pushed past him and went out of the front door. He followed her a little way, but then saw Mary and Abigail joining her as she went towards the big house. He decided that it would be better to stay away for now rather than risk the sisters saying something horrible to him in front of Judith.
He headed towards the forest alone instead, still thinking about her. He wasn’t very happy with how their conversation had gone, but Judith had only been in the Ark a few hours so far. He would have plenty of time to make friends with her before the end times came.
3
Sometime after dawn the next morning Stephanie woke suddenly, unable to remember where she was. Slowly, the knowledge came back to her. The bare room, the mattress on the floor. Nathaniel’s warmth beside her.
Careful not to wake him, she eased herself up and went across to the window, tiptoeing over the floorboards to avoid splinters. The glass was misted up from two people’s breath in the small space, but she could still see out a long way across the moors. They were ragged and vast, stretching on until their edges blurred, sheets of grass struggling beneath gorse and bracken clumps, jagged rocks standing out at intervals like shark fins.
‘Beautiful view, isn’t it?’ Nathaniel’s voice behind her.
Stephanie turned. He’d raised himself up on one elbow on the mattress and she wondered how long he’d been watching her.
‘It’s a bit desolate,’ she said.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Maybe. But don’t you think there’s a kind of cleanness to it? All the irrelevancies of modern life stripped away, all the ugliness gone.’
She looked again, trying to see it through his eyes. Yes – perhaps.
He beckoned to her and she rejoined him in bed, enjoying the feeling of his arms around her, the firmness of his chest. He murmured into her hair, ‘It makes me so happy to think I’ll wake up next to you every day from now on.’
‘Me too.’ She let herself savour the moment a little longer, then said, ‘I’d better go and check Judith’s OK. She might be awake already.’ She made to get up again, but he held her back.
‘She’ll be fine, my love. Mary and Abigail are looking after her.’
‘I know. But it’s her first night in a new place. It’s a big change.’
‘And a wonderful one,’ he said. ‘I hope you can still see that.’
She twisted to look at him. ‘Of course.’
‘You’ve done what’s best for Judith. Don’t forget that.’
‘She might need a bit of time, though. She’s angry with me.’
‘She’ll get over it much faster without you fussing over her.’
‘I’m not fussing,’ Stephanie said, mildly indignant.
He held up his hands. ‘Sorry. Not fussing, then. Please don’t kill me.’ She was still sitting up, and he leaned forward to press his chest against her back, kissing her neck. ‘I know you’re a bit unsettled, darling. But I wish you could relax and enjoy the first morning of your new life. You might look back on this one day and wish you’d savoured it.’
She leaned back against him.
‘You’ll see Judith at breakfast,’ he murmured. ‘Very soon. Can you wait until then?’
Stephanie nodded at last, and allowed him to pull her down to the mattress again. His hands moved to toy with the buttons at the neck of the nightdress he’d given her, delicately slipping them open.
‘Do we have time?’ she said, afraid of Ruth’s stern expression if they came down late for breakfast.
His hands stilled abruptly, and she was afraid she’d hurt him. He didn’t reply for a moment, and when he did his voice was distant. ‘I do wish you’d stop worrying so much.’
‘Sorry.’ She made a conscious effort to relax and focus on him. Sensing he still needed reassurance, she said, ‘I’m so happy to be here, Nathaniel. It’s just a bit new, that’s all.’
‘You’ll adjust quickly enough,’ he said, and his hands began to move again.
There wasn’t much time to worry, anyway. Even a single day living amongst them made her realize how much time she’d wasted in her old life, often just slumped in front of the TV or staring into space. Every moment here was accounted for, from the thanksgiving meeting in the prayer room before breakfast, to the meal itself, served and cleared by the women (Stephanie soon noticed and got up quickly to help), to the work tasks allocated to them for the remainder of the morning whilst the men – Thomas, Seth and Joshua – set off in the car for work. There was such a sense of energy and purpose here.
Still, she was relieved to hear she would be spending the morning with Nathaniel, since it was only her first full day in her new home. Judith had been led away to the barn with the other children for morning lessons, so at least Stephanie wouldn’t have to worry about her for a few hours. Her daughter had been stony-faced at breakfast, seated between Mary and Abigail and wearing a new pink dress that clashed strikingly with her hair. Stephanie had tried to catch her eye, but Judith wouldn’t look
at her.
‘I hope she’s alright,’ she said to Nathaniel now.
They were walking across the moors together, Stephanie wearing the brand-new, sturdy boots Nathaniel had bought her, and picking her way carefully around the boggy patches. The wind was calm, which was a relief; when Nathaniel had driven her up here the first time for that special lunch, it had been so strong she could barely stand up straight, and they’d had to battle through it to the safety of the house.
‘Of course she’s alright,’ Nathaniel said. ‘She’ll have settled in before you know it. Trust me.’ He took her hand. ‘Listen, how did you find the meeting this morning? I know it’s not the sort of thing you’re used to.’
‘It was OK,’ she said cautiously. ‘I think I felt more peaceful afterwards.’ She stumbled on a hidden dip in the ground, and he caught her, holding her upright. They paused for a few moments, his arms around her. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I’m still not sure I believe in God.’ She made a face. ‘Sorry. I’m not saying I don’t think I ever could, but I don’t really feel it at the moment.’
‘You don’t have to apologize,’ he said. ‘All I want from you is honesty.’ They began to walk again, turning their steps back towards the narrow track that led towards the two houses and barn. ‘But I’ll let you in on a secret,’ he said. ‘You said you felt peaceful afterwards, didn’t you? When the rest of us talk about God, we don’t mean anything very different to the feeling of peace you’ve just mentioned. The others talk about heaven and the Bible because that’s how they come to it, that’s how they’ve always understood it, the kind of calm you felt. The paths may be different, but the end point’s the same. And there’s nothing wrong with the path you’re on. You’re doing brilliantly. God will reveal Himself in whatever way is most suited to you.’
She tried to take it all in. She thought she understood, but she wished, not for the first time, that she were a bit cleverer, that she’d tried harder at school and college, got herself a proper education, so that following Nathaniel’s train of thought wouldn’t be such an effort. She’d never experienced this before – loving someone so much you were afraid of disappointing them.
