The Dark Light (11 page)

I knock on the door before I slide the hatch open. I cannot see her anywhere on the bed, nor at her desk. Sometimes when I come with the soup she is kneeling in prayer and only nods to acknowledge me and I am compelled to stand there for ages before she finishes.

‘Naomi. It is Rebekah,’ I say, ‘come with your food.’

But still there’s no sign of her. I push my face closer to the hatch to better see into the room. Maybe she’s lying on the floor, praying; she often prostrates herself, arms spread in the shape of the cross, fully penitent. Suddenly a hand appears close to my face, two gnarled fingers like grey twigs holding a scrap of paper. Startled, I yelp and stagger backwards into Alex.

‘What the hell?!’ Faster than I can react, Alex moves forward and snatches the piece of paper.

‘“Jonah 2.3”. What’s this supposed to mean?’

‘It’s a prophecy.’ I snatch the piece of paper back from her, ball it into my hand.

There’s a scrabbling noise on the other side of the door and Naomi stands up, her face appearing at the hatch. Her eyes are huge, almost as if she never closes them. Her face is as knotted as bark. From under her headscarf emerge wisps of grey hair. She puts her finger to her lips as if to silence us. Then she scribbles something on another piece of paper and holds it up.

‘LIVE FOR THE VICTORY!’

I step forward and give her the soup and bread, which she takes, but not before pointing at Alex and then at me and frowning. She puts her fingers on her lips again and then touches her ears and shakes her head. I take this to mean that she does not like us to be talking. Then she closes the hatch herself with a bang, dismissing us.

Alex laughs, but not because she’s amused. She looks sort of horrified.

‘She’s just a bit old,’ I whisper, as if that explains everything.

‘No shit,’ she says, looking at me. ‘She’s seriously freaky.’

Outside the sun has come out, low and blinding, but there are clouds now gathering around the Devil’s Seat and rainclouds on the horizon, travelling fast inland.

‘Let’s walk back the other way,’ I say, meaning that we should go the long way round, following the cliff path to the harbour and then back up through the woods.

We follow the goat track towards the cliffs. Here the birds roost: gulls and cormorants fly around the cliffs in a whirlpool of movement. It’s quieter now than it is in the spring when they come in from the sea to nest and it’s as if the whole island is made of birds and the cliffs here become a loud stink of guano. Harsh calls fill the air and at the bottom of the cliffs the sea churns, a constant boom as it breaks against the rocks. A gull hangs in the air just in front of us and we stand for a moment, the wind lifting Alex’s hair, birds diving and swirling around us.

‘You don’t
really
believe it, do you?’ she asks eventually.

‘Believe what?’

‘That the world is going to end, like, really soon.’ She points back to the Solitary. ‘All that prophecy and stuff. I mean know you’re supposed to respect old people and stuff, but . . .’

I look at the birds and the sea and the whole churn of it. Father and Bevins would say that the world we see is but a mirage compared to the eternity that waits for us.

‘Yes.’

‘What crap! I mean, look at these rocks. They’ve been here for millions of years. Why would it all come to an end now, just because
you
want it to?’

This sounds like temptation to me.

‘We know not the hour or the day.’

‘But that’s not true!’ she says. ‘I could make myself die right now. I could just throw myself down there.’ She walks towards the edge, making my heart leap.

I put my arm out to stop her. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘I’m not going to, silly. I was just saying I
could
kill myself. Then I would know the hour and the day.’

Since we have been here three people have been lost from the cliff tops. One when I was very young, before I can remember. The other two were newcomers. One was a woman who believed she could see the devil in everybody. Father said they were accidents, although I have heard Mary Protheroe and others refer to them differently.

I’m not scared of dying. Mr Bevins has taught us all to expect the transition from heaven to earth as if passing through a burning curtain. And once on the other side, all will be peaceful and gorgeous. It’s avoiding the Tribulations that is most important. During the Tribulations people will go mad and there will be raping and pillaging and torture.

‘But aren’t there things you want to
do
before you die? Like a bucket list.’

‘A what?’

She sighs. ‘Things you want to see or do before you kick the bucket. A bucket list.’

‘Oh.’ I’m still not sure I understand what she means. ‘I suppose.’ I haven’t really thought about this. Everything we do is about preparing for heaven, not about living our lives as they are now.

‘There are so many things I want to do!’

‘Like what?’

‘Like . . . I want to go surfing in Hawaii! And ride elephants in Thailand and . . . Oh! Go everywhere! Don’t you want to see the world?’

I shrug. Bevins teaches us that the world is full of danger. That there are demons and agents of the Antichrist waiting to destroy us everywhere, that being here is the only safe place. I’ve never thought of the world as somewhere I could visit. I’ve only ever thought of it as somewhere to be avoided.

And then Alex turns towards me and looks at me strangely, a smile twitching across her lips, as if she has just thought of something amusing. ‘Have you ever kissed anybody?’

What a thing to say. ‘No!’ I giggle.

‘Don’t you want to do that before you die?’

‘I don’t know.’ I wish she’d be quiet.

‘Are you embarrassed?’ She’s testing me, I know she is. ‘Your ears have gone red.’

‘
No!
’ I say, wanting her to change the subject. She’s being deliberately provoking. The sun disappears behind a bank of cloud and the wind starts to pick up. I shiver. ‘Shush.’

‘Aw, you’re shy. Don’t be shy. Kissing is nothing to be scared of.’

‘Have you kissed anybody then?’

‘Course! Loads of times.’ She puts her hands in her pockets all nonchalant.

I wish I knew how to be confident like that. There’s this awkward silence between us, where what I really want to say is, ‘Kiss
me
then,’ like a challenge, but I don’t because I’m scared and the thought stays in my head and I know it’s making me go bright red. Sometimes I feel so see-through it’s painful. ‘Come on. We need to get back.’

But Alex stands still. ‘I don’t want to go back,’ she says quietly. ‘I mean, not back with you. Sorry. Coming here was, like, a mistake. I’m serious. You’ve got help me find that phone.’

‘But you can’t leave!’ I blurt out before I have a chance to think. Then, flustered in case she thinks I’m trying to stop her. ‘I mean, not till the next boat comes and that won’t be till next month. You heard what Father said.’

‘I can’t wait that long!’ She reaches into the pocket of her jacket and pulls out her phone.

‘You know if they find that they’ll think you’re a spy.’

She shrugs. ‘That’s just stupid. It’s fucked anyway. There’s no reception and the battery’s about to die.’ She stares at the blank screen a moment and then says, ‘Maybe it was my fault.’

‘What was?’

She shivers. ‘Everything. He said . . . she never wanted to see me again.’

‘Who did?’

‘My mother. Bevins said I was sick. And because I was sick, that was why she died.’

‘You don’t look sick to me.’

She smiles bitterly. ‘I think he meant sick in the head. In the soul.’

‘Oh.’

Then I realize that there is a fat tear snaking down her cheek.

‘Oh. No. Don’t cry.’ I don’t know what to do. I touch her arm.

But she turns away from me and sniffs and wipes her sleeve across her eyes. ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘It’s OK.’

‘No, it’s not. You’re crying.’

‘I’m just cold.’

‘If you want that satellite phone, we’ll have to make a plan.’ I say it before I realize what I’m promising. If I get caught breaking in to Mr Bevins’s cabin I can’t imagine what will happen. ‘We can’t just go and get it; someone will see us.’

‘You’ll help me?’

I look at my shoes, the scuffed, muddy leather, the holes in the toes. Something in me gives, and I know then that I’d do anything for her. But I don’t say that.

‘Yes.’

She smiles at me then, properly. ‘You’re cute, you know that?’

No one has ever called me cute before. She has this way of being confident, like she
knows
stuff about the world, like she knows me. It makes my insides flip over.

But then she’s distracted by something behind me. She squints into the distance. ‘Someone’s following us.’

I turn around quickly, but can see no one behind, just the rocks of the Devil’s Seat towering above us.

I stare until my eyes hurt, but nothing emerges, just the bright hum of the wind in the grass, the constant smash of the water against rocks.

She shrugs. ‘Maybe it was nothing.’

But as we walk towards the harbour and the old lighthouse my back starts to prickle. I keep turning around, just to check.

A shower blows inland on the wind, the rain sudden and harsh. We run to the lighthouse, Alex pulling her jacket over her head for protection. The lighthouse is dangerous now; Micah has built a fence to keep the goats away. Bits of masonry and mirror keep falling from the top, and on the western side, where the winds are worst, it has a gaping gash where the bricks have split and crumbled. I look over the fence. It’s made from rolls of chicken wire, which in places have sagged so low as to make them pointless. I can see goat droppings on the grass on the other side.

Alex steps over it. I am about to tell her it’s dangerous, but she won’t listen to me anyway. I step over too and we walk around it, looking up at the damage. One more winter storm and it will be rubble, the bricks have moved since last summer and the structure is unravelling from the top like a dropped stitch.

‘It stinks in here!’ Alex says, peering and then stepping inside, disturbing a whole colony of birds, who rise from the top in a messy squawk.

I wait outside. ‘Be careful! It’s dangerous!’

As if to prove my point a slither of crumbling plaster hisses down the wall.

‘Come on, hurry up.’

‘Who used to live here?’ Her voice echoes inside the walls.

‘The lighthouse keeper, some farmers. A missionary. That’s who built the houses at the harbour. Before that, I dunno. Vikings or something. Hermits.’

She seems impressed by this. ‘People were so hardcore back in the day, weren’t they?’

‘I suppose so,’ I say, like I know what she means. Her hair blows across her face and she suddenly looks really beautiful, like she could be an angel or something, both a girl and a boy.

‘Are you OK?’

I realize I’m staring and my face flames. ‘Uh, sorry, er, yeah.’

She steps towards me and touches my cheek. ‘You’re blushing.’

There’s a heat in my body so vivid I can’t believe she doesn’t feel it too.

‘I want a bucket list too,’ I say, lamely.

She looks at me from the corner of her eye and then squeezes my hand and we walk along like this back to the path. All I can think about is how I want to walk with her off this rock and into the world and know the things that she knows, and my thoughts are so loud I’m sure she must be able to hear them. And my mouth is dry and I don’t know what to say. When we get to the path there is bright flash, the reflection of the sun on glass, someone with binoculars, higher up. Instinctively I let go of her hand.

‘There!’ Alex says. ‘I told you there was someone following us! Whoever you are – we can see you!’ She waves her arms.

I wonder who it is, until a figure emerges from behind a boulder and starts to walk towards us. My stomach cramps. Thomas Bragg, followed by Job, Micah’s dog. He’s wearing dark glasses and he takes his time, swaggering almost, towards us.

Job reaches us first, barking and putting muddy paws up the front of my dress.

Thomas shouts at him, but it seems to make no difference; Job carries on grinning and slobbering, as if he’s pleased to see me, though I know he’s sniffing my bag for food. Micah has had him since he was a puppy and he trained the dog himself to round up the sheep.

‘What are you doing?’ Thomas asks, not smiling. The dark glasses make him look mean.

He stands in front of us and glares at Alex. He has the kind of heavy face that makes him seem fat even though he’s thin, like we all are. Since he went off with that woman at last year’s mission, he’s moved back into a cabin with his parents. Father says he will have to work hard to prove that he is worthy of being trusted again. Lately Bevins has been keeping him close. They are often seen walking together discussing passages from the Bible, striding around with the book open in front of them like a map.

‘We were just—’ I start.

‘I didn’t mean you,’ he snaps. ‘I meant
her
.’ His face is red and he seems really agitated.

Alex shrugs. ‘We were just looking at the lighthouse.’

‘Yes, we were looking at the lighthouse,’ I echo. ‘Nothing was happening.’ But Thomas isn’t interested in talking to me.

‘No, I mean, what are you doing
here
?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘He said you were a harbinger.’

‘Who said?’ Alex stares at him, all the time squaring her shoulders, clenching her hands into fists.

‘Bevins.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Well, why are you here then? Why aren’t you in the Solitary?’ He’s almost shouting.

‘Thomas, calm down,’ I say, but he ignores me.

‘Bevins said you would corrupt us. I saw you; I know what you’re doing!’

‘And what were we doing?’

‘It’s just like Mr Bevins said!’

‘What is?’ I’m confused, I don’t know what his problem is.

‘I’m not talking to you!’ He swats at me with his hand. ‘Have you forgotten yourself?’

Women aren’t supposed to speak to men unless they’re invited, but somehow Thomas doesn’t count. He’s only a few years older than me. I remember him as a boy, still young enough to play with me, hide and seek in the barn, beachcombing on the north shore. He used to be okay.