The Dark Light (26 page)

‘I have such a headache,’ he says. ‘It’s clouding my thoughts. Why did He not come to us? What have I overlooked?’

‘You have not overlooked anything!’ Hannah says.

‘There will be another explanation to this. We must ask God to reveal His purpose,’ says Father.

‘How do you know?’ He looks at them furiously. ‘How do you know? He spoke to
me
. It’s me who needs to find the answer. Me who needs to think! I need prayer!’

He clutches at his head, pulling his hair.

The fire is beginning to ebb, the warmth retreating back towards the centre. Instinctively we have all drawn closer together. Suddenly Mary is at my side.

‘I
knew
it wouldn’t come,’ she says softly. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m sorry. I tried to get away,’ I say croakily. ‘But they’ve smashed up the boat. And Alex . . .’ I nod at her pliant figure. ‘He’s done something to her.’

Mary nods. ‘I know.’ The twins are at her feet, sombre and quiet, their eyes half closed. It’s unnatural for them to be awake so late; she could probably tuck them under a hedge and they would fall asleep. ‘I’m going to put them to bed,’ she says. ‘And let’s hope that this is the end of all this nonsense.’

‘I need some water.’

‘Of course you do,’ and she moves to give me a draught from her flask. But then Bevins is standing in front of us.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks.

Mary bites her lip and does not look at him. ‘I’m taking the boys to bed. They need their sleep.’

‘They can sleep in the church!’ he says. ‘We are in the hour between this world and the next. We must all
listen
for answers. We must offer ourselves until there is an answer. We must find out why he has turned His face away from us. Come on!’ He moves his arms like a herdsman, like we’re just ornery livestock that need gathering up. ‘Especially you.’ He comes close to my face. ‘Traitor!’

I look at his eyes. The piercing blue doesn’t seem so visionary any more; they are desperate, watery.

‘What did you do to my mother?’ I shout at him now. ‘Why did you keep all her letters? You’re a liar! You can’t see God!’

He stares at me as if he wishes he could set me on fire. ‘Thomas, come here.’

Thomas lumbers over still holding the gun. When Mary sees him she starts to walk quickly away with the boys tucked in close against her body.

‘To the church!’

‘You heard him,’ Thomas says, pointing ahead with the gun. ‘Go on.’

I stumble forward, the path lit only by the dying embers of the fire, the kind of dark light that does not shine bright enough to illuminate the way.

TWENTY-SIX

REBEKAH

When we reach the church Bevins orders that I be sat at the front.

‘The demon is still here – it has just jumped from one to the other.’ He looks at Alex and then at me. ‘It’s because of
you
He hasn’t come!’

‘Let. Me. Go!’ I fight against their grasp. ‘I am not possessed of the devil,
you
are!’

Father bends to my ear. ‘Examine your heart. You
must
confess,’ he whispers loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘You’re a liar!’ I shout. ‘You’re all liars! You’ve let me think all these long years that my mother was dead!’

If Mother was here she wouldn’t allow this, I know it. All because the Rapture didn’t happen. Mother would have found a way, with Mary Protheroe, to contain them, to temper Bevins’s manic enthusiasm, give him tasks to do, keep him level. I can see all that now, but I don’t know what I can do about it.

Alex sits beside me.

‘It’s better if you confess,’ she says. ‘Just let go of all your stubbornness. Just let it all go.’

I look at her, close to me now, the freckles on her nose, the way her lips pinch into little peaks, the stray eyelash on her cheeks.

‘Alex,’ I say softly, as if I could reach through all the junk that Bevins has filled her with and find the real person inside, the one who kissed me in the barn. ‘Alex.
Please
.’

‘Don’t be afraid, Rebekah. It’s better this way,’ she says. But when I look at her I think my heart will break.

‘No, it’s not.’ And for a moment I think I see a flicker of the old Alex in her eyes, but just as quickly she closes it down.

Naomi comes to the front, points a finger at my face and makes a weird gesture with her tongue and then a kissing sound.

‘Go away!’ I hiss at her. ‘Hag.’

I look at the others, everyone sitting obediently, hands in their laps. Why is no one moving?

Bevins clears his throat, raises his eyes and looks up. ‘He is there in His heaven, looking down at us and waiting,
longing
to come, but that we would all let him into our hearts by renouncing the devil! But there is a blockage, something in the way that must be overcome. Another battle to fight. Another victory we must claim for him. What do you say? Do you confess?’

‘I have nothing to confess! You’re mad! Let me go!’

He comes towards me and puts his hand on my forehead.

‘Rebekah, you’re burning up! Satan himself is inside of you. Satan himself! Do you not see that you cannot leave? You
cannot
leave us. God will not allow it.
I
will not allow it.’

‘You’re full of shit,’ I say. ‘I want to see my mother.’ Something inside me has broken. I don’t care any more what they think. It won’t make any difference. Who I am is not who they say. I’m just a chess piece to him, someone to move around the board of his mind.

He takes a step back. ‘It’s a strong one, Brothers! We must starve it out of her! We must exhaust it! We must break its will!’

His voice is hoarse, spittle and dirt in the corners of his mouth, his eyes aren’t even focusing. I try to catch Father’s eye but he’s kneeling, his head bowed, his lips muttering prayers on over and over. Everyone is under Bevins’s spell.

I close my eyes again and Bevins’s voice drones on, reading from the Bible now, and the noise, this black sound, like a dark shadow against a red background, a persistent
blah blah blah
in my ear. I wish it would stop – I can’t hear what it says any more, only that the constant noise makes it impossible to think. And he won’t shut up, he won’t shut up, he won’t shut up, the whole time he just keeps talking to fill the silence, to fill everyone up with his talking, so in the end no one has enough room in their head to be able to think anything for themselves.

I drift in and out of awareness. Some people have fallen asleep. There is the sound of soft crying coming from behind me. A few mutters of ‘Lord, please come’.

Next to me Alex is on her knees, and Bevins is prostrate before the altar, and Father is still kneeling where he was before. I have only been asleep for a few minutes. I am so confused. I can hear singing, maybe it is the Archangel Michael and all the angels, come to carry us home. For a moment my stomach lurches, and I’m thinking that perhaps it’s true after all. Oh Lord, let me not be left behind. But then I think it sounds more like a folk song that Mary might hum in the kitchen, or a lullaby from when I was a baby, my mother in my memory, singing to me.

I jolt awake, realize I have been dreaming and look around the church. Everyone is still here, Mary at the back, with the boys sleeping under the chairs. Light has returned to the sky; through the milky glass windows a red dawn rises. Pink light floods the church. It’s cold, my breath makes clouds and I pull my clothes tighter around me.

The cold seems to rouse Bevins and he stands up and shakes his head.

‘Wake UP!’ he shouts. A few people stand up, startled.

He opens his Bible and starts again, reciting verses from Revelation. He walks among us shouting that we are imbeciles, that we will suffer the lake of fire because we have not been taken. ‘It is likely the whole world has been Raptured apart from us!’

He rocks backwards and forwards on his feet and moves right into the Lord’s Prayer, and everyone joins in like this is just a normal service.

He moves to the back of the church and picks up a green can. The one he used to douse the bonfire in petrol. ‘But now, together, Brothers and Sisters, together we will go to the glory. We will not have to wait. I have been sent to release you. In heaven we will be free!’

And he starts to slosh petrol all over the walls and the floor.

Then he grabs me by the arm and drags me to my feet. ‘Come here,’ he says, and pulls me the front.

‘No!’ I try to duck out of his grasp, but Jonathan is suddenly there, holding my other arm, tight.

‘It’s the only way!’ he says.

He pours petrol over me, till my clothes are sodden and oily.

‘No don’t!’ Some of it goes in my mouth and makes me feel sick.

‘The time for talking is over! We are called to the glory!’

And he starts to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ and the others all join in except for me and Mary. The singing is loudly out of tune and the whole church now smells thick and greasy. I wriggle against Jonathan’s grip but he won’t let me go.

‘It’s OK, Rebekah,’ he says. ‘He’s just taking us home.’

‘Soon!’ Bevins says. ‘Brothers and Sisters! It will be like passing through a door from one world into the next. The disease of our flesh finally thrown aside, made holy, cleansed.’

He lights a candle and holds it aloft.

‘Hallelujah!’ Hannah says.

‘Amen,’ says Jonathan.

‘We are soldiers of God! We have been faithful.’

Bevins walks among the congregation holding the flaming candle above his head. Micah and Jonathan kneel and begin to pray.

Mary stands up. ‘Mr Bevins, I will not go to heaven under these conditions,’ she says in a quiet, steady voice. ‘A loving God would not take his children like this.’

Bevins pauses and lets out a long sigh. ‘Mary, Mary, Mary,’ he says, moving through the congregation. ‘Are you afraid to meet your maker?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘But I am not prepared to let the boys suffer.’

‘You are an agitator, Mary.’ He pinches the bridge of his nose and casts his eyes down as if seeking the patience to deal with her. ‘You are sent to test me.’

‘No, I am sent to speak the truth. There’s no need for us to end this way.’ She speaks, measured and calm, although I can hear a tremor in her voice.

‘You’re afraid.’ Bevins says softly. ‘I understand. But so were all the martyrs, all the many who have been called before us. What joy lies behind the veil! All our struggles ended! If you could see what I can see you would know that I tell the truth!’

Micah has moved to stand behind Mary. He puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes her back to sitting in her seat and Hannah starts to sing ‘The Lord Is Calling Me Home’, loud and out of tune.

I have this pressure in my chest so great it threatens to crush me so I can barely breathe. All it will take is for Bevins to drop the flame to the floor and the whole church and all of us inside will be consumed by fire. And I will never see Alex again and I will never see the world or Mother. I look at Mary. Fat tears stream down her cheeks and she clutches the twins.

‘I confess,’ I say.

‘What?’ Bevins comes over to me. ‘What did you say?’

‘I confess!’ I say, louder. ‘It’s my fault we are not Raptured!’

Perhaps if I can keep talking he might listen and I might at least be able to blow the flame of the candle out. Somehow I need to find a way to slow him down. To force him to think of another plan.

‘To my father. I want to confess to my father.’

‘Do you hear her?’ Mr Bevins kicks my father, who is kneeling at the altar. ‘Wake up!’

He looks up, bleary, as if he doesn’t really know where he is; everyone is so tired and hungry, the petrol fumes are strong.

‘Rebekah.’ He stands up stiffly, grabbing the altar rail for strength.

I look at him and wish that I had the power to get him to see for himself as clearly as I do what is at fault in this place. ‘Perhaps we misunderstood? Perhaps our understanding of the prophecy was a mistake? There’s no shame in that. We can’t go like this. Mother would be so sad.’

‘I believe—’

But Mr Bevins interrupts. ‘She knows not what she says! It is not her that is speaking, but the devil in her. It is because of
your
faithlessness. As it says in the Bible if you come to me and cannot leave your family you cannot be my disciple!’

Father’s eyes are blank, as if all the life inside him has been hollowed out. ‘You heard him.’

‘And you think he speaks the truth?’

He looks at me, and for a second I think he is about to stand up and claim the floor, cast Bevins out of the church and restore our peace and let us all go finally to bed and face tomorrow. But he does not. He just nods, slowly. ‘I do. Yes.’

‘But . . .’ I don’t know what else to say. ‘Mother would not want it to be like this!’

When I mention her, there is a flicker in his eyes, like something he is remembering from a long time ago. But before he can think it the thought is snuffed out by Mr Bevins.

‘
See?
’ Bevins cannot contain his delight. ‘
See?
’

That noise, the insistence of his voice. ‘You do not speak for me! Or for my father!’ I struggle against Jonathan’s grasp. ‘You’ve been tricked! You all have!’

‘Hear the devil who speaks with forked tongue!’

With every syllable he jabs his finger towards me. I am aware that Thomas has moved to stand behind me now, holding the gun. I close my eyes tight shut so I don’t have to look. I am sure he will drop the flame to the floor.

There is a loud roar in my head, which becomes an actual roar from outside, a roar that is getting louder and louder. Through the hazy glass there is a monstrous shape and a noise so deafening that I think it might actually be the end of the world. Alex looks towards the window, and then at Bevins, her eyes wide and unblinking as if she’s just been roused from a deep sleep.

‘No!’ she says, shaking her head. ‘No, no, no, no!’ She looks at me. ‘Rebekah!’ she says. ‘Run!’

Bevins pauses and stares at her, panicked for a moment, then he closes his eyes and shouts:

‘
Amen!
’