Messenger (Mary Hades)

by Sarah Dalton

  “Do you want to go?” Brother Jack asked. He jogged up to me with a hold-all over his shoulder. His breath misted in the cool October air.

  “What does it matter? We’ve been chosen­—”

  “It matters.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face him. For the first time, I realised that Jack looked older than he was. His eyes were set deep into his face, and he frowned a lot. Why hadn’t I ever noticed? “Your opinion matters. My opinion matters. We shouldn’t just go along with things if we don’t agree.”

  I thought of the niggling feeling in my stomach, the one telling me that something was wrong. I thought of the sleepless night I just had, and the cold sweat I had woken with. “You’re wrong. We’re on the right path; Father says so.”

  “Have you ever thought…” Jack hesitated and licked his lips. Then his eyes took on a hard, glinting quality, like he’d made up his mind about something. “Have you ever thought that Father Merciful could be wrong?”

  I turned back and kept walking. “I won’t listen to this. You shouldn’t talk this way, not in front of me. Especially not in front of Bram.” I should’ve been angry, but the truth was, I was scared. I was scared of what people would think if they heard. I was scared of how they would react.

  “Willa,” he insisted. “Willa, you must listen to me.”

  But I would not. I took my things and packed them into the van. Jack was my friend, my brother, but I couldn’t listen to him speak of Father Merciful in that way.

  He caught up with me and placed a hand on the van, blocking my path as I tried to get away. We were alone in the field behind the bedrooms. I was packing my belongings into Mother Ariel’s van, which was old and rusting. The white paint had turned grey. The ‘Transit’ sign had worn off.

  “Please, Willa, I just want you to listen. I know you don’t feel the same way, but I need you to hear me. Just this once, I promise. Then I’ll never say it again.”

  I checked around me. No one was there. No one would hear his blasphemy. “Okay. Say it, and then speak of it no more.”

  “When we woke up after taking the medicine, I was angry. Father Merciful promised something to us and it didn’t happen. I was angry at Father Merciful, but most of all, I was angry at myself. I nearly died. We nearly died, because he told us what to do. Don’t you see? We’ve stopped thinking for ourselves. We’re blind. We’re following because he has blinded us.” Jack’s eyes stared into mine. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

  I squirmed under his gaze. None of that was true. It couldn’t be. “Jack, I think you are on a path straight to Satan. You need to get off that path, before we lose your soul.”

  His fist clenched up tight as though he might hit the side of the van, but then his shoulders sagged and he sighed. “You’re right. I’ll do that.” But his eyes didn’t meet mine and I wasn’t sure he meant it.

  *

  We didn’t have a lot of vehicles. Most of the adults owned old vans like Mother Ariel’s. Some towed caravans behind them. Father Merciful travelled in his motor home, which was twice the size of any of our vehicles and befitting of a Messenger of God. He upgraded his motor home every few years, and Brother Jacob drove it around for him.

  I was squished up in the back of Mother Ariel’s van with Jack, Bram, and Alfie. Aunty Blu was sitting up front with Mother Ariel. Bram’s mother, Susan, was travelling with Brother Noah, but Bram wanted to be with us. It was cosy in the back, but every time we went over a bump, I fell on either Jack or Bram. Alfie laughed at me every time. He was still in his red overcoat, despite the rising temperature caused by our body heat and the approaching midday.

  Bram had developed a game with Alfie. He had to hide an acorn while the rest of us closed our eyes. Bram gave Alfie only ten seconds to hide it, but there were lots of places: in between suitcases, under coats, in boxes of stuff. Then Bram looked for the acorn and we helped. They started on best of three, then five, and it went on and on.

  Bram plucked the acorn from one of the bags and flicked it up and down with his thumb and finger. “That’s ten to me, Alfie. Only six to you.” Then his gaze moved to me and his eyes narrowed down to little slits. He smiled the usual Bram smile, bright and cheery. “That’s a beautiful dress, Willa. My, you’re becoming a very pretty girl.”

  The compliment caught me off guard. My cheeks flushed, probably bright red. Bram kept smiling at me, expecting a response, but I didn’t know what to say. All the time, Jack was stiff as a board next to me, his back as straight as a ruler.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I mean, if you weren’t my sister, I’d ask to court you.” Bram flicked his hair out of his eyes and made the acorn jump in his palm.

  “I’m not sure that’s appropriate, Brother Abraham,” Jack said in a quiet, monotone voice.

  Bram didn’t smile when he replied to Jack. “Father Merciful encourages honesty, and tells us not to be ashamed of our bodies. He encourages us to explore how we feel. Father Merciful is never wrong; you know that. We should be exploring our needs. We should say what our body wants. He tells us not to be ashamed of our urges, remember?”

  “It’s different. We’re related,” Jack said.

  “I know that.” Bram’s smile widened. “And I would never act on it. I was simply telling Willa that she’s pretty. What’s wrong with that? You’re so uptight, Brother. We’re all one big, happy family.”

  The flush of heat in my face refused to go away. I wanted nothing more than for Bram to stop talking.

  “Alfie, shall we play the acorn game again?” I said. He responded by nodding his head enthusiastically.

  Bram threw the acorn in the air and caught it one more time. “I think I should hide it this time. Everyone close their eyes.”

  Jack’s jaw was clenched so tight I could see his skin stretch.

  “All right,” I said. My throat was dry all of a sudden, and when I swallowed, it rasped. But I closed my eyes and ignored the way my heart beat faster. That same feeling was back, the one that told me that something was wrong. For some reason, all I could think about was the nightmare I’d had about the boy with the broken face. Make the bad man go away. Please. His voice had been high-pitched and sickly sweet. When his face began to morph into Alfie’s, I opened my eyes to make it go away.

  Jack had hold of Bram’s wrist. Bram’s hand was very close to my top, and between his fingers was the acorn. The tension in the van was as taut as the skin over Jack’s jaw.

  Bram wrenched his hand back from Jack’s grip. “It was only a joke,” he said. “You need to lighten up, Brother Jackal.”

  I looked to Jack for a response, but he was quiet. He placed his hands on his knees and stared straight ahead.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Bram shrugged it off. “I found a good place to hide the acorn, that’s all.”

  I thought of Bram’s hand close to my chest when I’d opened my eyes. A shudder worked its way down my spine. Father Merciful had told us to be open about our feelings, and to not be ashamed of our bodies, that’s true. But what about what we didn’t want? All I knew was that Bram with his hand so close to my body made me feel squirmy inside, like a nest of snakes was wriggling through my stomach. I knew that Father Merciful was right. I loved him, and I wanted to stay true to God, but I didn’t want to feel bad either. I wanted to be a good disciple, but sometimes it was so hard.

  “Can we play again?” Alfie asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Maybe later,” I said.

  Chapter Three

  For the rest of the journey, only the sound of Blu singing in the front of the van disrupted the tense silence. Ariel put on a CD of our favourite hymns and I found myself humming along with Blu.

  On my trips into the towns to give out my leaflets and ask for donations, the people there had been so strange and alien. They didn’t understand us. Sometimes they would call us names. I knew that I couldn’t save everyone’s soul, and I couldn’t make them understand who the
y were. Mother Ariel had warned me that many people would never comprehend the love Father Merciful had for her and the other women, that they would say that it was wrong to share love the way we did in the commune. She had never said whether it was wrong not to share our love and share our bodies. It was all I could think about whilst stuck in the back of the van with the others. Which way was the right way? It was the first time I had questioned anything I had been taught. It was like my feelings and my thoughts were going in two different directions.

  We stopped for a toilet break and lunch. At the petrol station, I saw how confused eyes regarded our clothes and vans. Then, as we ate our lunch at a lay-by on a main road, I stared out at the green fields beyond, wondering how much of this world I was yet to see. This was my first time away from the commune. Aside from the towns, I hadn’t seen anything of the world. Maybe Jack was right to question what we’d been taught. Maybe I was right to feel like the way Brother Bram looked at me was wrong, and the way Aunty Blu couldn’t look after herself was wrong, too.

  “Willa?”

  I turned around. Mother Ariel called me towards the van.

  “It’s time to go, honey.”

  Alfie slipped his hand into mine. It was comforting. These people comforted me; they were my family. And then, at that moment, I felt guiltier than I’d ever felt before. How could I have those thoughts about Father Merciful being wrong? No, they were my family, and I would stick by them no matter what.

  *

  It was almost night by the time we reached our new home. Brother Jacob was the first to greet us by showing us where to park and where to bring our things. The first thing I noticed was how the wind hit my face when I climbed out of the van. Then I saw how the landscape rolled away, and felt the rough moor grass underfoot. We were high up, with a view that stretched on for miles. The glint of the street lamps from a nearby town glowed through the mist.

  I helped Jack with a suitcase and dragged it towards the main building, following the others in a sombre procession. It could have been the chill on the wind, or the fact that we were all tired from a long drive, but I could swear that no one was pleased with our new home. The building seemed run-down from a distance, and that was confirmed when I saw it close up. One of the doors was swinging on its hinge, hitting the door frame over and over. I shuddered at its grey, stretched-out appearance, and the sagging roof that looked even worse than the one at our previous home.

  When we went inside, the wind whistled through the loose roof slates. The windows rattled. Every nook and cranny was covered in cobwebs. This could have been, at one time, a pleasant home for a family. Now it was tired and falling in on itself. The dust made me sneeze. There weren’t any beds. I looked at Jack and tried really hard not to cry.

  The first thing Mother Ariel did was unpack a big box of cleaning products and pass them around. Our long day was about to become even longer. Now we had to clean up our new home. It was either that or sleep outside in the freezing cold. I took a cloth and started scrubbing. Within two minutes, Bram had the children running around doing errands for him. Since he was the oldest of Father Merciful’s children, I could understand why the little kids looked up to him. I had once. But after the way he’d been acting recently, I couldn’t stop that feeling of my skin crawling whenever he was around. It frightened me that he had a way of making people do what he wanted.

  When we were sweaty, dirty, and longing for a shower that didn’t exist, Father Merciful arrived inside the house. His suit was still pristine white. His presence made me even more aware of my dirty skin and clothes. There were candles around the living room, but outside the window, the sky was pure black.

  Father Merciful opened his arms as though embracing us all. “Welcome to your new home. You have much to be proud of. Your hard work has not gone unnoticed. Brother Jacob, bring forth the food.”

  My mouth watered when Brother Jacob brought in a huge tray of sandwiches that he must have bought in a nearby town. We didn’t often eat food we hadn’t made ourselves. Sometimes, when I was in one of the towns, I looked at the bakeries and fast food places and wondered what it would be like to go in and order something. If I was collecting donations, I got a horrible urge to spend the money on pizza or burgers just to see what it was like. But that was Satan tempting me, calling me off my path. I would steel myself and think: One day I will look back and laugh at this temptation. It will all seem so insignificant when I am in paradise after Judgement day.

  “You have deserved this, my children.” Father Merciful’s eyes crinkled. He passed the sandwiches around. “Thank you, Lord, for this offering.”

  The bread was soft and white, and the butter was thick. The filling was some sort of flavoured chicken which tasted really good. I forgot my manners and wolfed it down, wiping crumbs from the corners of my mouth.

  “I have a vision for this new home, this new opportunity,” Father Merciful said as we ate. “It will be a sanctuary filled with God’s love. It is here where we will do our best work. We will worship, we will love, we will be one with nature. Here, in this holy land, we will be able to speak to God, and he will speak through me, because I am your Messenger, and always will be.”

  We bowed our heads and said, “Amen,” even though I still had a mouthful of sandwich. Then Father Merciful backed out of the room and we laid down sleeping bags on the hard wooden floor. Mother Ariel moved hers close to mine so we could sleep together. Alfie was on my other side, and then Alfie’s mother Cassie. She was one of the quietest members of the group. She had come to the commune when she was sixteen and had Alfie not long after. Mother Ariel liked to look after her and Alfie because Aunty Cassie was so young. When we were as settled as we could be in a cramped space on a hard floor, the candles were blown out, and our aching bodies were put at rest.

  But partway through the night, the sound of hushed voices woke me. I opened one eye, and then the other. Alfie was gone. I sat bolt upright. The room was dark, but once my eyes adjusted, I could make out the shapes of the people around me. There was a muted giggle coming from the far corner of the room. I stood up and gingerly stepped over the other sleeping bodies. Alfie was sitting cross-legged with Brother Bram.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “Alfie couldn’t sleep, so we’re playing the acorn game. Would you like to join in, Sister Willa?” Bram smiled at me. A sliver of moonlight highlighted his toothy grin, but his eyes stayed hidden in the dark. I took a step back.

  “Alfie should come back to bed now. You shouldn’t let him stay up like this.” I reached down and took Alfie’s hand in mine.

  “He had bad dreams and came to me,” Bram said, shrugging his shoulders. “I was just trying to help.”

  “I appreciate that, Brother Bram,” I said, speaking carefully. “But I think Alfie should get some sleep now.” I smiled back at Bram, all the while ignoring the creeping, ice cold fear that had wormed its way up my arms. If only Bram’s eyes were visible in the moonlight, I would be able to tell what he was thinking. Or would I? Did anyone ever know what Bram was thinking?

  “Did you go to him?” I asked Alfie as we settled back down onto the sleeping bags.

  Alfie looked down at his hands. “Yes, Sister Willa.” But I knew he was lying.

  *

  When I woke up, I looked around at the people cramped up in three rooms in the farmhouse and I saw that no one wanted to be there. The glow of Father Merciful’s words had gone. The excitement of the sandwiches and the cleaning had worn off. Now we were dirty, tired, and aching people who wanted to be home in their own beds. It was not so much that anyone said anything; it was more a feeling that radiated from everyone, like the smell from gone-off milk, sour and tangy. We didn’t smell too good, either.

  We filled some buckets with cold water to wash ourselves. There was no shame in our commune, and soon, the cobbled courtyard was filled with naked bodies running rags over dusty skin. When it came to my turn, I dreaded the thought of being naked. I couldn’t see
Bram, but I felt his eyes on me. I closed my eyes and saw his hand, caught by Jack, an inch from my chest. I took the soap and quickly scrubbed my face, armpits and feet, leaving my top and skirt on. Then I hurried away with a towel. Mother Ariel’s lips were pursed into an ‘O’, confused by my shyness, but I didn’t meet her eyes, so she couldn’t say anything.

  We had a breakfast of fruit and water, then we made a start on the large barn. This was going to be our place of worship. It needed to be completely clean. But the place was so dusty, I had to wrap a scarf around my mouth. Our cleaning went on all morning, and we ended up so tired that some of the younger kids started to cry. Mother Ariel decided that we needed a break, so she packed up a small lunch of bread and cheese and told us to go for a walk around the farm but not to go too far. Jack and I rounded up a bunch of the kids and went.

  For the first time, I saw the fields around the farm in daylight. The grass was different here; it was longer and yellow at the tips. Underneath the yellow strands was dark, spongy grass, a bit like moss. There were patches of purple flowers growing throughout the fields, and there were clear paths where the grass had been worn away. We walked along the path, watching how the ground sloped up and down like mountains I’d seen in pictures.

  Alfie walked next to me with his hand in mine. He had on his red anorak. I should have put on an extra jumper. The wind had a bite, and it chilled my skin.

  “What was your nightmare about, Alfie?” I’d purposely walked more slowly than everyone else so that they wouldn’t overhear us. Bram was back at the farm helping the others, so it was a perfect time to try to get the truth from Alfie.

  “The bad man,” Alfie said.

  His words sent an extra chill down my spine. “The bad man?”

  He nodded, but wouldn’t say any more.

  “Has Brother Bram ever hurt you?” I asked.