The Followers

by Rebecca Wait

  ‘Come on. We’re getting left behind.’

  They heard the screams before they reached the edge of the forest. For a moment, both of them stopped dead.

  ‘What the—’ Judith began, but Moses couldn’t answer, just looked at her wildly. His instinct was to run as fast as he could back the way they’d come. Whatever was happening on the riverbank, he didn’t want to see it. But there was another scream, though this time it was closer to a wail. He thought he recognized his mother’s voice.

  Together they burst out of the forest, and the rain hit them again, fierce and disorientating.

  The first thing Moses saw was that no one was in the river. All the grown-ups were standing there on the bank, and the other children, too. As far as he could tell, no one had been hurt, but now he could see that his mother and Deborah were crying. He turned to his father for an explanation, but his father didn’t look back at him. His body was rigid.

  Very slowly, Moses followed their eyes. It seemed to take him too long, because before he saw it for himself he heard Judith’s sharp intake of breath, her muttered ‘Oh God.’

  Between the two dipped banks, the river was running with blood.

  Moses stared and stared at the red torrent. In front of it, the prophet stood, his legs planted wide, his arms spread. Moses closed his eyes, but when he opened them again the monstrous sight remained. He thought he could smell it now, stagnant and reeking of slaughter. He saw the Egyptians filling up their pitchers, raising them to their mouths, expecting cool, clear water and finding something thick and warm and metallic spreading across their tongues, staining their lips red.

  ‘Now do you see?’ the prophet said. ‘Now do you see?’

  Even through the fog of confusion and terror, Moses was shocked by the expression on Nathaniel’s face. It seemed strange to him, amongst all the other strange things he had seen, that this most horrifying punishment seemed to have filled the prophet with triumph.

  After

  Judith hadn’t known withdrawal would be this bad. The tight feeling in her chest, the throb of panic as though at any moment things were going to spiral out of control. Her head ached, her eyes ached, all her muscles ached. She had a horrible, constant nausea, but she never threw up.

  This was all unexpected.

  ‘You’re fucked up,’ she remembered Nick saying to her once.

  ‘It’s recreational.’

  ‘It’s only recreational so long as you’re actually having fun.’

  She would have stayed in bed all day, but every morning at half past seven her gran would arrive outside her door and knock, politely but insistently, until Judith opened it, groggy and irritable. Then they would go downstairs to the kitchen, where her gran would make them both a cup of tea and they’d listen to Radio 4 together.

  Her gran, it appeared, was ‘taking her in hand’. This didn’t delight Judith, but at least she hadn’t been chucked out on the street.

  ‘I’ll look for another job soon,’ she muttered over the porridge that had just been placed in front of her. God, she hated porridge, particularly when she was feeling this queasy. But her gran, who was half Scottish, was adamant on the subject of its restorative qualities.

  ‘You can look for work as soon as you’re better,’ her gran said. Meaning, presumably, as soon as you’ve sorted yourself out, and stopped sweating and shuddering over breakfast.

  In the meantime, Judith stayed at home under her watchful eye. Throughout the morning they sat together in the small front room, electric fire on, her gran listening to the radio and knitting, or reading another intimidating-looking novel.

  In the absence of anything better to do, Judith really had borrowed Swann’s Way. It was dense and slow, bizarrely out of step with the stuttering rhythm of her own life. She began to lose herself in it, only absorbing about half the words, but finding the experience strangely restful. Although she had been ploughing through it for over a week now, she didn’t seem to be making much progress. Comforting, in a way.

  In the afternoons, she was permitted to disappear off to her room for a nap. These seemed to be the only occasions she did actually sleep. Night-time was still a write-off, and Judith sought refuge in Persuasion. Proust for the day, Austen for the night. (When she’d accompanied her gran to the local library, Judith had originally made a beeline for Dostoyevsky, but her gran had steered her firmly away: ‘I recommend something less alarming, Judith.’) But the spike of panic was still lodged in her chest, and she wondered if it would ever ease. Was this what it would always be like without any pills to soothe her, without a sly hit of alcohol to take the edge off? They told you in counselling that it wasn’t about forgetting what had happened, but about coming to terms with it – that old cliché. But what did it even mean? Precisely nothing, so far as she could see. You went to the sessions obediently enough, and then you walked on razor blades for the rest of your life.

  People say this place is beautiful, Moses had written in one of his last letters. They say I’m lucky to be living by the sea. My mother grew up here, so she likes it. But it doesn’t mean anything to me. I can’t get away from the Ark. It’s with me all the time, the smell of heather and earth, the feel of the wind. I think that must be the problem with growing up in one place, never knowing anything else. When you move on, you can’t help but take it all with you, so you find yourself always in the wrong place, the wrong time.

  3

  They waited nearly two days after the river turned red before they shut Esther in the prayer room. She’d known it was coming, and didn’t struggle or protest. There didn’t seem much point.

  The room was chilly and dark. They’d hung a cloth in front of the window so she wouldn’t be distracted from contemplating her sins. Esther sat in the corner, wrapped in the blanket Rachael had brought her.

  ‘I don’t think this will go on for long,’ Rachael had murmured as she passed the blanket through the door. ‘Just be patient.’

  Esther nodded, then listened as Rachael locked the door again behind her. This seemed unnecessary; she wasn’t going anywhere. The idea of trying to escape across the moors alone and on foot was ridiculous. And anyway, how could she run from God?

  She had known her punishment was coming when she saw the river of blood. Rachael and Deborah had cried out when they saw it, a strange, primal response to horror. Esther’s heart had faltered for a few moments before she realized what had happened: the heavy rainfall had washed the reddish-brown clay from the banks into the river. Had the others understood this too? Nobody said. And anyway it didn’t matter whether or not it was really blood: it wasn’t what it was that was important, but what it represented. Esther wondered, when the session came, how much they would hurt her. The worst she’d suffered before was a broken nose. It had been agony at the time, and had healed crooked. She couldn’t even remember now what she’d done to bring it about. Must be more than ten years ago. She no longer noticed the bump in her nose when she looked in the mirror.

  She had a feeling that this occasion would be more memorable; that the mark, whatever mark she was left with, would cling to her inside as well as out. She would not be one of them again after this.

  The rain was still coming down hard outside. She had to shift her position after a few hours when there was a fresh leak in the roof, the cold drops hitting the back of her neck and running down her collar. She moved a few yards away and watched the puddle forming where she’d been sitting, droplets splashing onto the floor one after another and beginning to band together; a little pool fanning out, glossy and dark in the gloom.

  She still found it unbelievable that he had left her. Nothing seemed real these days, and probably it stemmed from this, the fact that he had abandoned her, which was impossible and yet seemed to be true. Though Esther tried not to acknowledge it, part of her was still waiting for him to come back, to say, There’s been a mistake – I thought you were with me, and suddenly I looked round and you weren’t.

  She struggled to make her
self give up. The worst part of her, the part most vulnerable to the devil, thought she might go with him this time, if only he would come back for her. It frightened her, the idea that her love for Thomas could be greater than her love for God or her fear of hell. She didn’t want to go to heaven without him. How could it be heaven then?

  But he’d left her. He’d said he loved her and then he’d left her.

  Ruth came a little while later to escort her to the loo. Esther hadn’t realized until then that her bladder was painfully full, an ache low in her gut. She hobbled after Ruth, who waited outside the door as Esther locked herself in and fumbled with her dress.

  She followed Ruth back to the prayer room, wondering vaguely how they would have reacted if she’d had an accident on the floor. It would probably be taken as a further sign of her iniquity.

  It was difficult to get it straight in her mind, everything that had happened. She could lay out all the pieces in front of her – the river, the wailing; Thomas walking away to the car that last morning, though she hadn’t known it was the last; the bundle of bloodstained towels they’d buried at the edge of the forest. But she didn’t know what to do with them after that. She couldn’t work out how they all came together and brought her here, to the prayer room, alone in the dark. She didn’t know how to think. We close down our thoughts to protect ourselves, the prophet said. It is written in Genesis: the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.

  He could read minds. He could look into the shadowed places of her heart and see everything. But what did he see? Esther struggled again as she tried to look inside herself. The thoughts seemed to dissolve before they had even formed. She couldn’t judge herself guilty or innocent because she couldn’t hold it all in her mind for long enough.

  It wasn’t much of a surprise when they didn’t let her out that night. She would, it seemed, be sleeping in the prayer room. Ruth brought her a pillow, and Rachael came later with another blanket. Esther rolled herself up in the blankets as best she could and lay on her side. All through the night as she lay awake, she felt the cold from the floor seeping up into her skin and into her blood and her bones. She listened to the rhythmic plunk of raindrops onto the puddle near her feet.

  She remembered the last time Nathaniel had come to her at night, the day after Thomas left and shortly before she was exiled to the big house. She had felt his anger when he touched her. Then, a little later, she’d finally recognized sex for what it was: an act of violence. He thrust into her, even as she tightened her muscles as though, uselessly, to resist him. But it was impossible. Her only role was to submit, to endure this invasion because it was what she was made for. The woman is empty, Nathaniel said; she needs to be filled by the man. Of course. When we get ideas above our station, our biology betrays us. Every penetration is an invasion, an act of rape, because God has designed it that way.

  And yet. She remembered those times with Thomas, the drowsy satisfaction, that feeling of meeting halfway. It had been unnatural, Nathaniel said, her relationship with Thomas. They had lost sight of God and looked only at each other. Perhaps it was true, Esther thought. But Thomas had looked away in the end.

  Since it was dark in the prayer room already, and since Esther couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, it was sometimes difficult to tell the night from the day, except that the night was colder. Most of the time she sat with her back to the wall and stared in front of her, watching the darkness. She waited patiently. Nobody came to visit her except for Ruth, who didn’t speak as she handed over food and water, and walked with her to the bathroom and back.

  ‘It gets very cold at night,’ Esther said on the third morning. ‘Do you think I could have another blanket?’

  Ruth looked like she was about to say no. But Esther was shivering so much she could hardly hold the plate Ruth had handed to her. An extra blanket appeared with lunch. So she was still worthy of some small kindnesses, then.

  It was strange, but more than anything else, it was the physical memory of Thomas she retained. More than she longed to hear his voice or see his face, her body craved his: its warmth and weight, the firmness of his arms and the bulk of his shoulders under her hands. She felt him lying next to her on the mattress, his body touching hers at every point, legs entangled, their faces pressed together – noses, foreheads, lips. ‘I love you,’ she would whisper, but love was given in the tenderness and familiarity of touch, not in words. Words were weak by comparison. She couldn’t even remember their final conversation. She hadn’t paid enough attention. She hadn’t realized.

  Since she was spending so much time in the prayer room, she thought perhaps she ought to pray. She would pray for strength, and focus all her energy on being full of the Spirit so there would be no room for the devil to enter. (Though maybe this would do no good if the devil had already entered? She wrestled with this thought, then decided to put it aside.)

  Satan, I refuse you.

  Satan, I refuse you.

  Over and over she said it, but it didn’t bring the calm it once had. When she was finished she felt exhausted rather than refreshed.

  After a week, Nathaniel finally came. The rain showed no sign of easing. Esther pushed herself up off the floor when she heard the door and leaned her back against the wall, wanting to be on her feet for whatever was coming. The prophet entered.

  He didn’t say anything at first, so Esther took the opportunity to study him. Even now he was older, there was something about him that made you want to look at him. Perhaps it was the contrast between the dark hair, now greying, and the pale green eyes. Or the fierceness of his gaze, the way he stared into you, allowing you no opportunity to hide.

  ‘Hello, Esther,’ he said.

  Seth appeared behind him, carrying a wooden chair in each hand. He came into the room and placed the two chairs facing one another. The prophet stepped forward and sat down. Seth disappeared, closing the door softly behind him.

  ‘Sit,’ Nathaniel said.

  Esther took up her place opposite him. She couldn’t decide how to sit, whether to cross her legs, whether to fold her hands in her lap or leave them hanging at her sides. Everything she did seemed clumsy and unnatural. She felt the prophet’s eyes on her as she shifted her position; a glimmer of amusement from him, perhaps.

  He said, ‘I’ve come to talk about your sin.’

  She couldn’t look away. She had thought since she was a teenager that this was the most powerful kind of love. She’d thought love was being chosen. She’d thought it was grand sacrifices, all the time trying to prove he was right to choose her. But no: love was the memory of Thomas’s forehead pressed against hers. Love was the feel of his arms, his hips, his feet. Choosing him, even though he hadn’t chosen her in the end. The weight of the realization doubled her over.

  The prophet said gently, ‘Do you need a glass of water?

  She shook her head. He thought it was the sight of him that had done it.

  He said, ‘You let me down, Esther.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I trusted you. I trusted you above everyone.’

  ‘Nathaniel, I promise I didn’t know he was leaving,’ she said. She was sure she was telling the truth, if you could ever be sure – because if she had known, how would she have been able to bear it?

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said. ‘Even now, you’re lying.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, but her voice was weak.

  He said, ‘You could have protected the Ark, but instead you conspired to destroy it.’

  He must be right, Esther thought. Of course she should have reported Thomas when he shared his doubts with her, only it had been impossible to betray him. She had betrayed the Ark instead.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

  ‘Thomas let the devil in, and you helped him.’

  She didn’t know what to say, so she stayed quiet.

  ‘He’ll feel God’s anger,’ Nathaniel said. ‘He’ll suffer as he deserves.’

 
; ‘Please, Nathaniel,’ Esther said, frightened out of her silence. ‘Ask God to spare him.’

  A hard, sharp slap across her face, which happened so fast she barely had time to register him rising from his chair. She turned her head away. He stood over her, breathing hard.

  ‘Don’t plead for him,’ he said.

  Esther looked up into Nathaniel’s face and thought that she barely recognized him.

  And she saw herself again, standing at the bus stop, many years ago. The past had gained strength and was running alongside the present, so that whilst Esther in the present looked back at him, Esther in the past – Jess, as she was then – turned and saw him for the first time.

  She’d been standing at the bus stop for over an hour, but she had nowhere to go. She’d just realized that if she didn’t go home at the end of the day, her parents might not actually notice, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be shocked or frightened because they had been rendered unshockable and unfrightenable by what had happened to Toby.

  It might have seemed suspicious, being approached by an older man like that, but he had a woman with him, smiley, normal-looking, so she hadn’t been nervous, just looked the man up and down sullenly when he came over. Pale eyes, dark stubble.

  He had said, ‘You look cold.’

  ‘I am fucking cold,’ Esther – Jess – had said.

  ‘Well, we can’t have that,’ he said. ‘We’re just off to a meeting. Why don’t you come along? We can at least promise a cup of coffee, maybe a slice of cake if you’re lucky.’

  She fancied a coffee, but she wasn’t an idiot, and she didn’t go off with strangers.

  ‘No thanks.’

  The man had shrugged. ‘Up to you. But it’s not a sensible move, standing alone on the street like this. It’s getting dark. We’re heading round the corner to St Martin’s. You could at least come along for twenty minutes, just to warm up, decide your next move.’