The Followers

by Rebecca Wait

  Is it really this simple? Gathering at the appointed hour, getting it done before breakfast, most of them half asleep? Sarah looks down at her feet, at the black house shoes she wears beneath her dress. They rest neatly, side by side, on the dirt floor of the barn. She moves her right toe a little, sending up a small cloud of dust. Now she notices that whilst dressing in a rush this morning, she has put on odd socks. This is all wrong. She wonders if she has time to go and change them. She can’t perform the cleansing like this.

  She is just deciding that she will have to ask Nathaniel to wait for her for a few moments when the barn door opens again and Seth and Joshua come through it. Esther is between them. The men hold her arms on either side, though she is meek and still. They lead her into the splash of light under the bulb. Sarah steps back a little, further into the shadows. Tries not to think about her socks.

  Heaven is high. It’s difficult to believe what’s about to happen. But Sarah feels no ties to Esther, no pity and no sadness. In truth Esther is already gone. It is only the finishing that will happen now, the very end. And even if Sarah did want to change her mind, even if she did want to try and stop it, she knows she couldn’t: what’s taking place is beyond her. On her own, she doesn’t even exist.

  Her guard has dropped for a moment; her eyes have met Esther’s and Esther is staring back at her. A frightened, questioning look. There’s nothing Sarah can tell her.

  The prophet says, ‘Esther, you’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’

  Esther looks around at them all, as if trying to work out what’s going on.

  Sarah makes herself step a little closer, comes to stand at the edge of the circle of light. The knife glints and she sees the moment Esther notices it.

  Don’t worry, she wants to say. It’ll be over soon.

  But Esther, not understanding it has to happen, not understanding that it is done to save her, begins to struggle wildly. Joshua and Seth are still holding her arms and Sarah thinks how slender Esther is, how fragile she looks between the two men. Esther’s eyes never leave the blade in Sarah’s hand as she bucks and pulls uselessly for escape.

  ‘Nathaniel—’ Esther says, her voice high.

  He raises his hand to silence her. He says, ‘Esther, the life of the flesh is in the blood. It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.’

  ‘I don’t want my soul!’ she says. ‘Take it. Leave me my body!’

  The prophet smiles sadly and Sarah sees that Esther condemns herself with her own words. Nathaniel says, ‘No one as lost as you wants to be saved. Trust us to act in your best interests.’

  Esther continues to struggle, but she is no match for Seth and Joshua, who bend her arms up behind her, causing her to cry out in pain. Her mouth has dropped open, Sarah sees, as though she has lost control of her body. She hopes Esther won’t wet herself; vaguely, at the back of her mind, she is aware that this can happen to people in extreme terror.

  Then Esther seems to go limp, so the men are no longer holding her still but holding her up. After hanging there weakly for a few moments, she manages to put her weight back on her own feet.

  She says, ‘So it’s decided, then.’ Her voice shakes, but all the same, Sarah admires her courage.

  ‘Esther,’ the prophet says, his voice infinitely gentle. ‘We’re giving you the chance of heaven.’

  If the rain stops now, Sarah thinks, perhaps it’s not too late. We can all go back to bed, Esther included.

  But even as she thinks this, she hears it again on the roof, soft and insistent.

  And probably it will be easy. She knows what to do. When the prophet nods at her, she takes another step forward. The mechanics of it are so simple, she thinks, as she puts the blade to Esther’s neck, the soft part where the pulse shivers. Put the point to the pulse and press. In a moment, that is what she will do, but for now she tries to hold the blade still, the sharp tip not yet pressing into the skin. Esther is trembling violently, and Sarah notices her own hand shaking, as though Esther’s trembling is catching. She had pictured the motion of sliding in the blade as delicate and gentle, but now she realizes that with Esther moving like this, she’ll have to push the knife in harder to make sure it reaches the right point. It makes her anxious, that her plan has to change.

  Joshua and Seth, though still holding Esther’s arms, have turned their heads away. Ruth has as well. This is what surprises Sarah the most, that Ruth of all people should prove weak in the end. But this is Ruth’s act too, she thinks, as much as it belongs to any of them.

  She tries to make Esther look at her. She wants this, needs it, perhaps: a final moment of understanding between the two of them. She wants Esther to know that this is not personal. Sarah is merely the instrument of God. And she wants to say, I’m sorry.

  But Esther won’t look at her.

  Sarah suspects that everything will change when she pushes the point of the knife in. It will be like stepping across an invisible divide into a new world. She wants to take a few moments to say goodbye to the old one. The wooden handle of the blade has grown warm in her hand. It is such a small tool, this knife.

  But the prophet, standing behind her, says, ‘Do it.’ She tries to focus on God as Nathaniel has taught her but her mind remains empty. She pushes on the handle of the knife but doesn’t use enough force; the blade nicks the skin, and there is some blood, but only a little. Esther shudders and pulls away, but makes no sound.

  A small, impatient noise from the prophet. Sarah realizes with dismay that she is messing everything up. The sight of the blood has startled her and she feels her fingers loosening around the knife. She has only seconds before she will lose control of herself. Help me, God, she thinks, but again God does not come. She gathers herself. Her grip tightens on the handle until her knuckles go white. She drives the blade in with all her strength.

  Esther knows she should feel pain, but it’s too white-hot to register. She is relieved, because she’s always wondered what Toby must have felt in his last moments and now she knows the answer: nothing much at all. Surprise, perhaps – because he was never the sort of person to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not like Esther herself. But he would have quickly soared out of pain’s reach. She wishes she could tell her parents this.

  She is no longer afraid, though her body shakes and jerks because it’s been taught to want to preserve itself. Her mind is clear.

  Even as she feels the blade in her neck, she raises her eyes to Nathaniel and keeps them there. She thinks she sees him flinch. This time he will be the one who can’t look away.

  But he is moving, shimmering from side to side. Esther is on her knees, then on the floor, and there is red everywhere. Blood, she corrects herself vaguely. The pain is coming now, but as quickly as it arrives she seems to be moving away from it. Catch me if you can, she thinks. The words come into her head slowly, stay with her for a moment, then leave her. Her cheek is against the dirt floor. The darkness is coming in. God is nowhere.

  So, she thinks. Then: Thomas.

  And, at last, she feels his arms go round her. She closes her eyes.

  ‘We should have put plastic sheets down,’ Ruth says. ‘For the blood.’

  VI

  Revelation

  1

  When Moses opened his eyes, he was lying in a pool of sunlight. It must be past eight, but no one had come to get them. He experienced a moment of panic, a residue from early childhood. The old fear that the end times had come and he’d been left behind. But when he moved his leg he felt the reassuring warmth of Peter beside him on the mattress.

  Slowly, he sat up. Why hadn’t his mother or Deborah called them for breakfast? Something else was troubling him, too. It took a few moments to work out what it was.

  ‘Peter,’ he said, shaking his shoulder.

  His brother made an indistinct noise, and rolled away from him.

  ‘Peter,’ Moses said, prodding him insistently. When Peter finally groaned and opened his eyes, Moses s
aid, ‘The rain’s stopped.’

  Now Peter was sitting up as well, rubbing his face and saying through a yawn, ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Is it over, then?’ Moses said.

  Peter reached for one of his slippers, and hurled it at the top bunk. It caught Jonathan’s ear and he woke with a start.

  ‘Listen,’ Peter told him.

  Jonathan’s face creased in confusion.

  ‘What do you hear?’ Peter said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Comprehension dawned, and Jonathan swung down the ladder to wake Ezra. ‘The storm’s over,’ he said. ‘We’ve been spared the flood—’

  He faltered and gave Peter a quick, questioning look. Peter replied in exasperation, ‘Well, we’re not floating, are we?’

  ‘So where are the grown-ups?’ Moses said as they pulled their clothes on.

  ‘Praying?’ Ezra said.

  They crept along the corridor to the girls’ room and knocked on the door. Abigail opened it, already dressed.

  ‘Did someone come to get you up?’ she said. ‘I think they forgot us.’

  ‘We haven’t seen anyone,’ Peter said. ‘But the rain’s stopped.’

  Judith and Mary appeared behind Abigail at the door, Mary attached to Judith by the end of her hair as she finished plaiting it.

  In a small crowd they headed down the stairs to the kitchen. Judith dropped back to walk beside Moses. She had her plait over her shoulder and was chewing the end.

  He said, ‘Do you think things will go back to normal now?’

  ‘This place was never very normal,’ Judith said.

  The others’ voices fell away as they entered the kitchen. When Moses and Judith reached the door, Moses sensed it too. There was something strange in the atmosphere of the room. The air felt different, as if they’d suddenly gone deep down below the earth. But the kitchen looked the same as always. The strangeness, whatever it was, was silent and hidden. Nevertheless, it dissolved their words even before they spoke them.

  Moses looked at his mother for reassurance. She was standing by the stove putting food onto plates, but she didn’t turn as they came in. There was a rhythm to her movements as she dished out sausages, then toast, then eggs. He watched her a few moments longer, thinking that perhaps she couldn’t break off or the rhythm would be lost. Then he turned to his father, who was sitting at the kitchen table. His father’s face was very white. He didn’t look back at Moses.

  Joshua was sitting opposite but he wasn’t talking. No one was talking. Deborah was washing up pans at the sink, with Ruth doing the drying.

  The grown-ups had forgotten themselves. They had forgotten how they were supposed to behave, the things they normally did.

  Only Judith’s mother remembered. She turned to smile at them as they entered the room and Moses was relieved.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ Judith said.

  ‘Will you take the plates through to the dining room? The table’s already laid.’

  ‘But that’s our job,’ Abigail said. ‘Laying the table is our job.’

  Moses thought of all the times in the past when Abigail had grumbled about this; but he understood that she, too, was afraid, that she wanted this feeling of unfamiliarity to go away as much as he did.

  ‘We thought it would be nice to let you sleep in today,’ Judith’s mother said.

  So, in a quiet procession, the children carried the loaded plates through to the dining room and set them down amongst the cutlery. Unsure what to do next, they took their places at the table and waited.

  After a long silence, Ezra said, ‘Nobody mentioned it. About the rain stopping.’

  ‘They must be waiting for the prophet,’ Peter said.

  Moses sat beside Judith and looked at his plate. The yolk of the egg was hardening, grease standing out in drops on the sausages.

  ‘There aren’t enough places,’ Mary said suddenly. ‘They haven’t laid enough places.’

  ‘Esther’s still in the prayer room, stupid,’ Ezra said.

  Eventually the grown-ups came in, the prophet amongst them now, dressed neatly in his usual white shirt and dark trousers. When they were all in their seats, he said, ‘Thank you, Lord, for providing this delicious food.’

  Moses waited, expecting a longer prayer, but apparently this was to be all. Nathaniel nodded at them to begin, and for a while the only sound was the scraping of cutlery on plates. The food was almost cold, but nobody commented. Moses wondered if the grown-ups had even noticed; they seemed so quiet and odd. Perhaps they didn’t remember food was supposed to be hot. He felt a surge of panic at the thought, the irrational fear that all their meals would be cold from now on.

  At length, the prophet said, ‘You’ll all have noticed by now that the rain’s stopped.’ He raised his fork and put a piece of sausage in his mouth, looking round at them as he chewed. When nobody answered, he said, ‘That’s because we’ve done what the Lord asked. We’ve cleansed the Ark of sin.’

  Perhaps this was what the strange feeling was, Moses thought. The absence of sin.

  Into the silence, Judith said, ‘Does that mean Esther can come out of the prayer room?’

  Moses was amazed at her daring, but knew he shouldn’t be. If someone asked him to say one thing about Judith, one single thing you noticed before anything else – well then, he would say that she was brave.

  Then he realized the prophet had spoken and he hadn’t taken it in properly because he was thinking about Judith. He retraced the prophet’s words in his mind: ‘Esther is no longer amongst us.’

  Again, Judith was the only one who spoke, though her voice was quieter now. ‘She’s left?’

  The prophet said, ‘God has removed her. For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. We’ll spend today in prayers of thanksgiving to God for sparing us, for saving us from the harm Esther and Thomas brought upon us. And then after today – ’ his eyes swept across them – ‘nobody will mention either of them again. That’s God’s condition. Abide by it, or you’ll be punished.’

  Moses kept his eyes on his plate. He knew he should be joyful – they all should. It was difficult to explain the feeling that had come over him. He glanced up at his mother, but she didn’t look back.

  It was a long morning. They spent three hours in the prayer room giving thanks for God’s mercy and the end of the deluge. Moses had thought that during the prayers they might at least find out where Esther had gone, but it was never made clear. An almost silent lunch followed, then three more hours of prayer, repeating the words of the prophet over and over again.

  O God, we thank You for Your mercy.

  O God, see how we have cleansed the Ark.

  Moses was almost asleep on his feet by the time the light began to fade. The children were sent away to play whilst supper was being prepared, but they were too exhausted to do much except sit in the schoolroom. Peter, Ezra and Jonathan played a half-hearted game of marbles, whilst Mary and Abigail began a new drawing. Moses and Judith sat quietly in the corner.

  ‘Where do you think she went?’ Judith murmured.

  ‘We’re not supposed to talk about it.’

  ‘After today,’ Judith said. ‘And besides, it’s only you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe she left across the moors.’

  Judith frowned. ‘I hope she made it.’ After a moment, she added, ‘We’ve been stuck inside all day. Let’s go for a walk before it gets too dark.’

  The light was already dim when they stepped outside, stretching and yawning in the chill air.

  ‘Too dark for the forest,’ Moses said. Secretly, he was relieved. The forest was ruined now it had been broken open.

  ‘That’s OK. I just wanted to stretch my legs.’ Judith broke into a run, shooting away from Moses and then circling back, doing a quick lap around him and stopping again beside him.

  �
��What on earth are you doing?’ Moses said, in his best imitation of Ruth.

  ‘Stretching them. My legs.’

  They were both laughing, mainly in relief at being outside, shaking off the heaviness of the air inside the houses. Moses did a quick run too, back and forth along the side of the barn, and then they both leaned against the wall, getting their breath back.

  He wasn’t sure what made Judith go into the barn. They hadn’t been told to stay away from it. If they had, Judith wanting to go in there would have made more sense. Judith pushed against what was right, Nathaniel said, like the devil pushing against God. But as much as Moses had tried to listen to the prophet, he could never make the words seem true. He didn’t think Judith was like the devil. She was only like Judith.

  And now she opened the barn door idly and wandered inside. Moses followed.

  It was the smell they noticed first. Unfamiliar, but somehow Moses recognized it. For a moment he was standing again on the banks of the river as it flowed red, though he knew that smell had been in his head; Judith had explained about the clay.

  He blinked away the river, and the next moment he was beside his mother in the kitchen as she seasoned a slab of raw meat.

  The barn smelt of slaughter.

  ‘Why—’ he began to say, but Judith had already reached up to put on the light. The bulb lit up only a small patch of the floor, but enough for them to see that it was discoloured, the pale dirt stained a deep brownish-red.

  For a while, neither of them spoke; they just stared.

  ‘What’s that?’ Judith said eventually. Her voice was distant.

  Moses didn’t reply, just kept looking because he couldn’t do anything else. The red fanned out on all sides, its edges blurring into the gloom where the light stopped. Moses felt the cold creeping inside him. Without realizing it, he had moved closer to Judith, and now his arm touched hers. He felt her shivers passing into his own body.

  Suddenly she seemed to come back to life. She reached up and tugged at the light cord again, covering the stain with darkness. Then she grabbed his arm, pulled him out of the barn and back into the sharp, clean air. She closed the door behind them, shutting the smell inside.