Grey

by Kayley Barratt

  “Who actually watches the footage?” I ask him quietly.

  He laughs. “Me. But in my absence, it’s not uncommon for another leader to take over.”

  “Wait, so… if you saw someone escaping on the footage, you wouldn’t turn a blind eye to it? You’d—”

  “Don’t push it, Elizabeth.”

  “Sorry.”

  When we turn another corner, I catch a glimpse of group B working in the field. They look exhausted, one of them is halfway to the floor already. I frown for him; no matter what group he’s in, he still feels pain the same way we do. In theory.

  Elijah turns another corner, and rows and rows of grey cabins are visible; they’re similar to our dorm cabins—only these have bright, blue solar panels on the roofs.

  “Are these… is this the men’s dorms?” I ask, suddenly startled.

  “Yes.”

  “But—” I start angrily and then I swallow the anger down. “Enjoy your electricity, do you?”

  “Pastor favours the men.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  We enter through one of the side doors of a larger cabin and the electric bulbs embedded into the ceiling guide our way down the narrow passageway. Elijah climbs a metal staircase and I follow him upwards onto another platform.

  “What if someone catches me here?” I whisper.

  “Shush!”

  I push my lips together, firmly locking my jaw from opening—just because I want to avoid another scenario of him holding my breath. I quietly make my way behind him as he opens a door into a dark room. He switches the light switch on as I enter and I gaze around in awe, closing the door behind me without taking my eyes from his dorm.

  He has a bed. An actual, comfortable, king-sized bed with luxurious pillows and dark blue bed sheets. He has a carpet. A cream, soft carpet that feels amazing against my soft-deprived toes. I walk a little further, staring down at my feet that crinkle around the loose wool. I laugh to myself, becoming aware of how stupid I look being fascinated by a carpet.

  Elijah watches me from across the dorm, his gaze turning amused.

  I turn my head and then I’m wandering over to his desk against the wall. He has a lamp. And deodorants. And a wardrobe. I’m so fascinated by every insignificant thing that I become distracted as to why I’m here.

  “He definitely favours male leaders,” I say, finally meeting his longing gaze.

  Elijah just stares at me, a small smile almost forming on his face.

  Something catches my eye and I gasp out in a weird type of excitement as I notice the record player in the corner of the dorm placed on a wooden chair.

  “You listen to music?” I demand, rushing over to it.

  “Yes,” he says.

  I open it up, staring down at the record. It’s been so long since I’ve heard music that I don’t even think twice. I spin it, pulling across the piece that I’ve seen people do in movies. I’ve never used one before, but I think this is how they work. I wait for something to happen and then a soft tune begins playing through the speakers that causes me to flinch. I smile, turning to face Elijah, whom is still gazing at me.

  “Music excites me,” I say in defence.

  “No?” he says. “Really?”

  I roll my eyes and then the purpose of why I am standing here dawns on me. “So…”

  “So…”

  “You were going to show me something?”

  “Yeah,” he whispers. He crouches down to the carpet and pulls the edge up, holding it with one hand as the other reaches underneath it. I hear the sound of a floorboard being pulled upwards and my smile grows wider. He uses the same technique that I used with my parents. “Ever since I was recruited to leader, I became curious about my birth parents. I’ve never known any parents as I was passed around as a child between members to look after. And then, when I reached a certain age, I had to fend for myself.”

  He pulls out a stack of papers, and I walk closer as he takes them to his bed and drops them on top. “I did some digging a few years back. And I came across these.”

  He spreads out what looks like photographs across the bed, my eyes fall down and then I begin moving those outwards—my eyes fall onto photographs of women taken from the early eighties to nineties. I pick up a photograph of a miserable, dark-haired woman with permed hair; she stares straight into the camera with haunting, wide eyes—like she is a ghost. Underneath is written: Janet Mitchell. 1985.

  I’m so focused on her eyes and her frightening stare that I didn’t notice her body. Her bulging stomach is full on view, she is heavily pregnant in this photograph and as expected, she isn’t happy about it.

  I drop the photograph, my fingers lingering on another and another. I recognise every single name from Duncan’s blank book. Elijah found the extra pieces to the puzzle—but how? Duncan wouldn’t have kept these anywhere in sight.

  “I think,” he says, picking one out and lifting it. “This is my mother. It’s the only name that matches the date of the year I was born.”

  I take the photograph from his fingers, glancing over the young girl that looks no older than fifteen. She is pretty. She is a slim girl with a thin face and a pointy, long nose. She stands against a pillar of the ancient chapel, a hand hovers above her pregnant stomach as she glares at the camera with no expression or emotion.

  “Tabitha Bowen,” I say quietly, reading over her name. She was one of the names included early on in the book, she gave birth in the late eighties. And he’s right, she was the only one to give birth in the year nineteen-eighty-seven. “How do you know this was when you were born though?”

  “There was a leader that used to work here,” he explains. “Her name was Helen. She delivered me. When I became a leader, she told me all I wanted to know and more. Pastor held monthly meetings between men and women, manipulated them into engaging in sexual contact and convinced them that they were bringing fresh life into the cult. In reality, he just wanted home-grown members. Helen was the only mother I ever knew.”

  “What happened to her?”

  He lowers his eyes, showing me the answer without speaking it.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  He shakes his head, taking back the photograph. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Is that why you remained here?” I ask. “You could have left when you were upgraded, but you chose to stay. Did you stay for answers?”

  “Partly. It’s complicated.”

  “I know all about complicated,” I say. I look back down to the photographs and then my attention shifts back to focused as I gaze upon my mother’s face. I pick it up quickly, staring at it with keen observation.

  This is definitely my mother. There’s no question about it. Her face, her demonic glare, her knotted grey hair—she hasn’t aged much in eighteen years. The only difference is that she has fewer wrinkles. She stands outside one of the dorm entrances, with her hands by her side, just gently pricking at the bottom of her short gown. I squint at the picture, becoming severely alarmed at something.

  “Wait,” I say.

  I keep the picture tight in my hand as I move through the remaining photographs, glancing at each girl or woman, mentally making dot-to-dots on which names were at the front of the blank book and which were added beside the names afterwards.

  “What is it?” Elijah says.

  “My mother isn’t heavily pregnant in this photograph,” I say, still shuffling through images. “Half of these women are and half aren’t.”

  I find a photograph of a tall, big-built woman with dark hair and small, scary eyes. Underneath her image is the name: Amelia Sanchez.

  Underneath my mother’s photograph is the name: Katherine Belle.

  “The names are switched,” I say, pointing to them.

  “I thought that was an error,” he says.

  I glare at him. “What are you talking about? How can you think it’s an error if you’ve never seen them before?”

  He stabs his finger at the other woman’s photograph.
“Because that’s Katherine, Pastor’s wife.”

  “Wife?” I say, the shock makes my voice rise. “He has a wife?”

  “Yeah. She’s absent for long periods of time to keep track of outside members. She’s due to return soon.”

  I shake that from my head for a moment. “But, this doesn’t make any sense. My mother doesn’t look pregnant and Katherine is. The names were side-by-side in the book. Why is Katherine listed as Amelia if this is Duncan’s wife? I know he has a son, he mentioned that. But how are they connected to each other?”

  “Elizabeth,” Elijah says. “It’s probably just an error, seriously, don’t think too much about it.”

  I’m still unsure, but I gradually drop the photographs back to the bed, biting my nail as I stare at them below me. I shift my eyes across the papers.

  “What do you think happened to all those babies?” I ask.

  His silence disturbs me, and I look up, to where Elijah takes a deep breath before he answers. “We’re all still here.”

  Chapter 36

  Elijah and I travel back to the compound quietly, the sun is lower in the sky, and there are only a couple of hours left before sundown. He keeps turning to look at me, but I can’t find the words to bring anything up. All I can think about is the poor, hopeless souls in group D whose lives have prematurely ended. And I will never know who they were.

  “You’re quiet,” he says.

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “Mhm,” I agree.

  He turns abruptly, halting my walk. “I know this is the wrong time to bring it up but about what you said earlier at medical—”

  “That you’re in denial?” I whisper. “Don’t worry, I’m past that.”

  “If you were talking about you and me—”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Elijah,” I mutter, glancing towards the gate. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

  He gives out a small laugh, causing me to narrow my eyes. “You’re scared we’re related, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I say. “Why? Are you?”

  He twiddles with his jaw for a moment. “No.”

  “Good.”

  I carry on, skimming past him. I hadn’t even thought about that. What if we are related? We might have different mothers but neither of us know who our fathers truly are. I don’t know what the truth is anymore, I don’t who I am anymore. Am I really Amelia and Jonas’ daughter? Or was I merely just a project—sent to be raised by them until Duncan called for me to be returned? If that’s true, then the name switching could mean more than just an error. The last date included in the book was two thousand and one, so the youngest member to be born here is now fifteen. That could be Carol, or it could be one of several teenagers in any group—or they could still be out there, enjoying their life with no idea that they’d one day be forced here.

  Forced back here.

  “It makes no sense, does it?” Elijah says as he catches up to me.

  “No.”

  “Well, if you can’t figure it out, then the rest of us don’t have much luck.”

  I sigh, becoming annoyed by his voice. I don’t know if it’s the uncertainty of our DNA or if it’s just the sudden eagerness to have Nathan in my arms—but I keep as much distance between us as possible. I now view him as a boiled pan, if I touch him, I’ll burn.

  “We’re not related,” he says. He places his hand onto my arm and I pause, glaring forwards in anger. “Helen told me my father wasn’t part of the academy. My mother was already pregnant when she joined.”

  “What?” I say, turning to him in confusion. “But you said Duncan made members meet to have sex.”

  “No,” he says. “Duncan’s father, the former Pastor, did that. After he died, Duncan forbade any sexual contact all together. That was twenty years ago. But even though he now forbids it, he still finishes his father’s work in bringing them back.”

  “So, the book isn’t Duncan’s?” I whisper. “It was his father’s.”

  “And the photographs.”

  “You stole them from his father?” I accuse. “Did Duncan ever see them?”

  “I was fourteen,” he says. “I don’t know who ever saw them. I found them hidden underneath the floorboards of the warehouse. He might still believe them to be there, or he might not know about them at all.”

  “If Duncan’s been running the cult for twenty years, then that’s from nineteen-ninety-six,” I say quietly, staring into the air. “He must have updated the names in the book. Is there absolutely no chance that he was allowing members to have sex for those five years between then, and the last date which was two-thousand and one?”

  He squints at me. “No. He forbade it immediately. The later dates must have been members that joined while pregnant. Why?”

  “Because I was born in nineteen-ninety-eight,” I say, swallowing. “And my mother was a member here, but she was pregnant during the new cult rules. She wouldn’t have just joined, going by her mentality, she’d probably been here most of her life. So, who the hell is my father?”

  Elijah’s eyes widen as he realises and we both just stare at each other, both of us wondering the same thing but are too afraid to speak it. Our stare is interrupted by the opening of the gate across the compound. I look as members of A move out of the way to let through a black BMW with tainted windows.

  “Katherine,” Elijah whispers. “She’s back.”

  I stiffen at her name. The car slides across the gravel, stopping outside one of the cabins a few feet from us. Supervisors and leaders appear from everywhere, all of them surrounding the car as though Katherine is a celebrity that needs protecting from the rest of us. A leader opens the door of the backseat and a few seconds later, the tallest, most intimidating woman I’ve ever seen in my life pulls herself up into the light. She is a beast of a woman. Her face is round, pale and chalky; her shoulders are broad like that of a man and her hair is black with a stripe of grey that is neatly tied into a ponytail. She wears a suit. Her blouse is tucked into her high-waist trousers and she adjusts her blazer, flattening it over her outfit as she stares ahead with a superior smirk.

  Her eyes meet mine, and her smirk vanishes, replaced with a gaze of control and shock. I just stare back at her. Her head gently rolls sideways, but an eye of hers is still kept on me. She calls into the car and looks back to me as another figure emerges into the light.

  A boy.

  He is a child, hardly older than fourteen, but he is handsome. He is tall with tanned skin and dark brown curls that blow in the wind. He looks with Katherine, taking in his surroundings with a familiar robotic stillness.

  “Elijah,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “Who is that?”

  “Edward,” he replies. “Their son.”

  Katherine whispers into her son’s ear and he stares at me as she does, making my blood turn cold. There’s something familiar about his eyes, the way they squint just a little, letting through a soft, dancing brown. There’s something familiar about his nose, the way it wriggles as he takes in scents that the wind brings to him. His eyelashes are thick and long, like he has dipped them in mascara.

  I take a breath; observing the way he speaks back to her, slow and spaced. He doesn’t ramble like a teenager should, with excitement or questions—he is composed, like an adult. As he straightens, his hand goes up to the collar of his buttoned shirt, he twists it between his fingers and then clears his throat.

  He’s intelligent.

  But more than that, there’s a frightening shadow that clings around him. A shadow that brings me a feeling of such breathlessness that I have to turn away. Not only is he intelligent, but there is another familiarity that captures my attention.

  He looks exactly like me.

  Chapter 37

  I pace in my dorm, ignoring the many pairs of eyes that are stinging into me with concern. Everything is colliding into my thoughts at once; fighting over each other to become the priority—but I can�
��t choose one, so I’m letting it all swamp me. Katherine and her son returned hours ago, and there was no assembly today. I don’t know if that’s because Duncan has business elsewhere, the business I’m too scared to mention, or if Katherine is becoming acquainted with her husband after so long apart. It’s too quiet out there, I don’t like quiet, I don’t like waiting. Not like this.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Carol says as she jumps up from her bed and grabs my arm, bringing my pacing to an end. “Stop doing the crazy pace thing and talk to us.”

  I meet her eyes, trying to bring out the words, but I don’t even know where to start. How do I begin to explain what I’ve discovered today? How do I explain the book and the names when I don’t even understand it myself? How can I tell them about the fate of group D when they were all so close to Ruth?

  “What did you see?” Carol whispers.

  “Was it the exorcisms?” Salome presses. “Did you see something?”

  “Elizabeth,” Carol says, forcing me to look at her. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Whatever you saw, we can help,” Victoria says. “But we need to know what it was.”

  I rub my nose, trying hard to focus on anything other than the pressure to reveal the truth. They wait for my answer, all of them giving small smiles as if to coax it out of me. It’s taken me a while to ease the guilt of what happened to Ruth and discussing it with them might bring unwanted questions to the surface. What if Ruth is amongst those that Duncan was speaking about? What if she is no longer alive? What if right now, she is lying dead on a slab with Duncan peering over her body with a satisfactory grin? And if it’s not her, then how long until it is? She is the woman that saved my life three weeks ago, who took a leap of faith and believed in doing the right thing no matter the consequence, even though it was my own choice.

  How many others are in group D? Are some of the women in the photographs amongst them? Even if they are still alive, is there truly any saving them from the psychological damage that Duncan has twisted into them?