The Dark Light (8 page)

EIGHT

ALEX

I woke with the dawn barely edging the curtains, wide awake, damp. I’d hardly slept all night, thinking, planning how I was going to get my hands on that satellite phone. I fell asleep dreaming about it. I wanted to go back and I didn’t care if they pressed charges. There was something off about the whole place that made it hard to breathe. The way those boys looked, dirty and disorientated. That woman Mary said it was to keep them safe, but I didn’t believe her; someone had given them something to keep them quiet.

I turned over and looked at Rebekah, who was sleeping on her back, one arm flung above her head, her mouth moving gently with the rhythm of her breath. She was so innocent it was dangerous. Anything could happen to her. I wanted to take her away from here. Someone needed to know what was going on. None of it was right.

There was noise downstairs, pans and plates being moved around in the kitchen, the sound of voices. Then feet on the stairs, and there was someone, Mary, standing in the doorway. Her face was pinched, weathered, her shoulders stooped like someone who has spent a long time carrying something very heavy.

‘You’re not supposed to be sleeping there!’ was the first thing she said.

I opened my eyes and stared at her. ‘Well, where else was I supposed to sleep?’ I said, but she didn’t answer.

Next to me Rebekah moved, stretching and groaning.

‘Come on.’ Mary came over and pulled the covers off us. ‘Up.’

‘Fuck off,’ I muttered, before I could stop myself.

The temperature of the room dropped. Rebekah flinched, then jumped out of bed.

‘And we’ll have none of that language here, thank you.’

‘Why not?’

‘God is listening.’

‘Oh fucking fuck off,’ I said, even louder. Like God would have the time and the inclination to be personally offended by me. God, if He existed, never listened to my prayers. I’d figured that out a long time ago.

‘
Please
.’ Rebekah covered her ears.

Mary stared at me hard. ‘
Downstairs
. Two minutes.’ She wasn’t asking.

When she’d gone to wake the twins, Rebekah looked at me reproachfully. ‘Don’t swear,’ she hissed. ‘That word is one of the
worst
things you can say. When Jonathan was possessed by demons he started saying it all the time, until he was cleansed by a night of prayer. Mr Bevins strictly forbids it.’

‘Oh fuck off,’ I said again, just to be spiteful. ‘I fucking hate this place, and she’s a complete Nazi. I mean, why is she getting all uppity about where we sleep?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think I was supposed to make up the camp bed for you.’

Seriously, I had to get out of there as soon as possible. It would be very easy to just start screaming or something, I felt so tense. I reached about the bed and started collecting my clothes. I’d taken my jeans and sweatshirt off in the night.

‘Here.’ She held out a plain black dress.

‘I’m not wearing
that
.’ I sat up. ‘Are you mad?’

‘But we’re commanded to be
modest
,’ she said, almost whining.

I ignored her and pulled the blanket around my shoulders like a cloak. ‘But I’m a visitor, aren’t I? Surely there are different rules for visitors?’

‘But you can’t wear those –’ she nodded at my clothes – ‘the whole time you’re here! They’re dirty.’

I got out of bed and shook out my jeans, which were stiff with salt from the boat. I was aware that she was staring at me.

‘What’s that?’ She pointed to my ankle, where I had another tattoo.

‘Eye of Horus. Supposed to be for protection. Like in ancient Egypt.’

‘Protection from what?’

‘Evil spirits, bad people, that kind of thing.’ I pulled on my jeans, covering it up.

I’d had this boyfriend who wanted to be a tattoo artist. He wanted to give me this whole back piece. He drew it out and everything, a whole tableau of mythical beasts. Dragons and unicorns and mermaids. But I’m glad I stopped him. I mean, even I knew that fourteen was too young to make that kind of commitment. One day though I was going to have a whole work of art on my body, something beautiful and terrible. Rebekah was staring at me like I was an alien or something. When I caught her eye she blushed and looked away.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered.

‘You don’t have to keep saying that! I’m starving. Is there any breakfast?’

When we got downstairs her father was waiting with Mary and Hannah.

‘You certainly do look quite the d—’ Mary stopped herself. ‘Tomboy. We’ll have to find you some more
appropriate
clothes.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘look, this was all a big mistake. If you can just call Ron and Bridget, they’ll pay whatever to get me out of here. I shouldn’t have come.’

‘I pray for you, Alex,’ Hannah said, her eyes fluttering. ‘We all do.’

‘You can’t force me to stay!’ I said. They couldn’t, could they? All I had to do was call someone – Ron and Bridget, Sue the Social Worker.

Mary laughed, but it had an edge of falseness. ‘Of course not! We’re forcing no one. Whatever gave you that idea? You come to God of your own free will.’

‘We’re not making anyone do anything,’ Rebekah’s father said. ‘But if you are going to live with us, then you need to abide by our rules.’ He looked at my trousers. ‘You’ll need to take that lip piercing out too.’ They sounded just like some of the teachers at school.

I wondered if they were hearing me at all. ‘But that’s what I’m
saying
. I’m not going to live with you. I want to go
home
.’

‘We already discussed this. Ron and Bridget entrusted you to our care.’

I folded my arms. ‘Yes, but I’ve changed my mind. This was a bad idea.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not your decision to make.’

‘
Seriously?
So you’re keeping me prisoner? Is this like an intervention or something?’

Hannah laughed as if I’d just told a really hilarious joke. ‘Ha! Prisoner!’ I didn’t understand why she thought it was so funny. ‘We’re
all
prisoners of the Lord! He keeps us safe with bonds of love!’

I glared at her.

‘Come on, we need to get the breakfast ready!’ Mary handed me a pile of bowls. ‘Put these out on the table, will you, please?’

Hannah was staring at me, all smug like she’d won something. I should have run then, but where was I going to go? I needed a plan.

Next to the kitchen was a dining room with a huge wooden table that filled the room and about twenty chairs around it. On the wall was a reproduction of da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, in which Jesus breaks bread with his disciples and everyone looks at him except Judas, who stares out over his shoulder at the green fields, the blue sky.

I dumped the pile of bowls on the table, but Rebekah came in and told me off.

‘You’ve got to put them
out
,’ she said, taking them and laying them around the table.

‘Whatever.’ I sat in one of the chairs and folded my arms. This wasn’t what I signed up to. Rebekah put a spoon in front of me. I might as well let them wait on me. ‘What’s for breakfast?’

‘Oh no!’ Rebekah said. ‘We eat separately. Men first, then the women.’

‘
What?
’

‘Mr Bevins said it was more proper to separate us, and that the men need to be shielded from the frivolous thoughts of women so that they can better contemplate the mind of God.’

I snorted. ‘Yeah, whatever. I’m not moving.’

Then noise came from the kitchen and a few of them filed through. Rebekah’s father, Jonathan the mad guy from yesterday – they all had thick, wiry beards, one huge with hands like shovels that I heard called Micah, the twins’ father, who looked like he could have stepped out of the painting on the wall.

As they all came in, quiet, subdued, I could sense there was someone behind them, someone who was like the engine of this place, and when he was there in the room it was unsettling, it was like the whole place belonged to him, and all the people too, and I was suddenly nervous. He was short and wiry, his black hair long and windswept and salted with grey, and his beard grown thick and straggly. He wore a dark wool suit and a white shirt like someone from another century. He looked fiercer and more angry than the man in the photographs. I don’t know why, but I stood up.

Rebekah ran over to him, as if to embrace him, but he just stood still and stared at her, so she stopped and blushed and looked at her shoes.

‘Why are you not in the kitchen with the women?’ he said, coldly.

She looked confused and mumbled an apology and walked towards the door. I moved to follow her, but he made a gesture with his hands meaning I should sit down.

‘Eat with us,’ he said; his accent was a weird mix of English and American.

There was a murmur from some of the men, like they disapproved. But he sat down next to me and smiled and looked right at me, as if he could see straight through and into me. It made me feel shy and I couldn’t help it, but a blush rose up my neck and spread across my face. His eye sockets were set so deep in his face they were like tunnels, at the end of which his blue eyes shone, irises rimmed with black like someone had drawn around them with a marker pen. He spoke quietly so I had to lean towards him to hear.

‘It’s what you want, isn’t it? To be one of us.’ He pointed at the others around the table. Most of them seemed old, well, lots older than me, anyway, apart from one who was young, barely any fluff on his chin, who was staring at me like I was some kind of an alien.

I didn’t know what to say, so I shrugged.

‘To be one of the
men
?’ He said this more loudly. The young one snorted. I wriggled in my seat, and blushed even harder.

Hannah came in with the porridge. She ladled some into my bowl with a heavy splat. I looked at the grey splodge of congealed oats and suddenly didn’t feel hungry.

Before he let anyone eat he went round the table and asked everyone to confess their bad thoughts. ‘We need to confess any sinful thoughts that will distract us from our purpose.’

The men looked at their hands and mumbled confessions about being lazy or tired or slothful. Jonathan said he had been doubting and having dreams about taking drugs again. ‘I have been thinking of leaving, like.’

Mr Bevins nodded and listened patiently to each one like a good teacher. Then when they were finished and the porridge was definitely cold, he said, ‘Let us pray.’ He pushed the sleeves of his shirt up his arms – he did this a lot, I noticed. Like a kind of tic. ‘Oh Lord, forgive all our sinners. And bless this meal, and bless –’ here he paused and grabbed my hand – ‘our new arrival. The precious flower You brought to us. Help us to lead her to Your light. Help us to live for the Victory.’ I stared at his clasped fingers, they were clean and neat, unlike the others whose hands were roughed and calloused and stained with dirt. Everyone had their eyes closed, apart from the young man sat opposite who was still staring at me. I stuck my tongue out at him, and his glare intensified. He pointed his fingers at his eyes and then at me, to show that he was watching me.

When Mr Bevins had finished, he took a long time to let go of my hand, running his finger across the shape of the moon tattoo on my thumb. Every nerve in my body tingled.

‘You know it is written that if your hand or foot offend you, better to cut it off than be cast into everlasting fire!’ He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards him so I could smell damp clothes and sweat and something else, a strange muddy, chemical odour. ‘She’s come here to learn from us. But also to lead us home! Isn’t that right?’

‘Hmm.’

‘I have been praying all week for your soul. I have seen your arrival in the kingdom of heaven. You are loved and welcome.’

The emotion came off him like a force field. And that force field wrapped itself around me and made my body tremble. It was strange, but when he was talking he had this way of making me feel like I was special, like I mattered. Like he could see beneath my skin and see what made me tick.

‘Thanks,’ I muttered.

After breakfast he insisted that I go with him to the church. So we could ‘get to know each other better’. I didn’t really want to, but no one protested. Rebekah’s father nodded approvingly.

He took me past all the huts. They would have been nice when they were new, wood cabins with sloping tin roofs and wooden planked walls. Except now they looked weather-beaten, fixed with bits of driftwood, plastic. I wondered which one was his. I was going to make a call on that phone the minute I got my hands on it.

‘I know why you’re here,’ he said, staring at me as if he really could see inside my head. He said I came to him in a vision. The harbinger. The one who foretells.

‘You were the one who stood there in the last moments and ushered us home! The good Lord blessed me with a gift. I can see what will happen in the future.’

‘No! You’ve got it wrong. I’m not any kind of mystical person!’ I said. I didn’t like the sound of the harbinger.

‘I know you’re sceptical right now. Perhaps you’re scared. But for those who walk in the light, there’s nothing to fear. I have nothing but love for you – God’s love, which passes all understanding.’ He smiled and laughed softly. ‘Jesus died for your soul. He would die a million deaths for you! Human love pales into insignificance in comparison.’

I nodded and prepared myself for the kind of burble Bridget used to give me when she went on about God but then he said, ‘I’m not like the others, Alex, I don’t condemn you. I’m standing here with love, so
much
love for you.’ And his eyes shone like he was holding back tears. ‘I
understand
what you’ve been through. I
do
. You grew up with nothing. No parents to love you. No one you could count on. Everyone here understands that. That’s where we’ve
all
come from. You’ve done so great to get this far. So, so great.’ He shook his head. ‘What happened back in Essex, it’s totally . . .
understandable
. You were angry. You were lost.’ I felt suddenly embarrassed. Had Sue the Social Worker been talking about me? ‘I spoke to Pastor Matthews the other day. Everyone back there is praying for you so hard, that you will see the way. The Lord has plans for you. He has kept you safe all this time for a reason and brought you here to be with us.’