The Dark Light (15 page)

I shake my head. No one knows why the stone is there. Carved all over it are strange marks, whorls and lines and circles within circles. Some of the lines are so indistinct and full of moss it’s hard to know what they might be. Mother said it was made by people who lived on this island long ago. Hannah and Margaret look at it fearfully as if it might contain spells and say it’s a symbol of the times when the world was covered in a great darkness, although I don’t remember that bit in the Bible.

‘I want to see it,’ Alex says, walking away from me and leaping the gate into the field.

I follow her. ‘We’ll get left behind.’

She shrugs. ‘It’s not like you can get lost on an island this size.’

I suppose it can’t hurt for a few minutes. Mary and Ruth and the other women are busy with the boys and Hannah is ahead of us, deep in conversation with Mrs Webber. The stone is bigger than you expect. The distances are deceptive – from the path it looks close by, but it’s a long way across the field. The stone is at least the size of two men standing on each other’s shoulders.

‘Wow,’ she says, looking up at it. ‘Neolithic.’ She traces the lines of one of the circles with her fingers.

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but she sounds like an expert.

‘Stone Age,’ she says. ‘Don’t they have that in your encyclopedia?’

‘God made the heavens and earth in seven days,’ I say.

I don’t really know what the Stone Age is. In my head I have some idea of the galaxies forming, the world coming together in some big crash like a sudden wave that comes in and then goes out, leaving things washed up on the beach. One minute there was nothing, the next there was a whole world, seas, animals, people.

‘You sound like them,’ she says, pointing at the group disappearing over the horizon. ‘It’s evolution. People growing more civilized as we evolved from our monkey nature.’

‘Monkey?!’

‘Yes, human beings evolved from apes. But you don’t believe in that, do you?’

This makes me uncomfortable. I have never heard anyone actually say that they believe in the Big Lie before.

Mr Bevins goes on about evolution all the time. He says it’s another reason that the Rapture is coming soon, because people have started believing in false theories that have led them away from God. ‘But that’s not in the Bible.’

‘But the Bible is just a story written by people thousands of years ago. A
story
. A story isn’t a fact. A fact is a fact. It’s scientific.’

‘But . . .’ I don’t know how to argue with her. ‘The Bible isn’t a story. It’s
history
.’

‘No, it’s not!’ She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘It’s
impossible
for it to be literally true. It’s a story from thousands of years ago. Like Shakespeare or whatever. I mean, you’ve got to admit it, Bevins is kind of
extreme
.’

Her words frighten me. I look at the stone with its mossy engravings and feel a cold terror at the idea that everything I’ve ever believed in is nothing but a
story
. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘We’d better catch up.’

The main group has disappeared over the ridge of the field. Mary waves at us to come back to the path. Even though the island is only five miles across from north to south and nearly seven from east to west, the ground is rough going and we are crossing at the widest point. The fields are protected by stone walls that were made by the crofters, but in places they are crumbling and slowly sinking into the ground. We clamber over them, sheep running away from us in panicked clumps.

‘Baaa!’ Alex says, chasing them and laughing. ‘Sheep are so
stupid
!’

Once we get past the fields the land gives way again to moorland which leads straight to the sea and the long stretch of sand that is the north beach. Blue-grey sea appears over the lip of the horizon. Around here there are birds’ nests and burrows for puffins, although this time of year they are all out at sea. Alex stumbles into a puffins’ burrow, kicking up a whole mess of moss and twigs. It even still has some broken eggshells in it.

‘Oops.’ She stops to look at the mess. ‘Did I kill it?’

‘No. It’s old. From the spring.’

A buzzard flies above us in the blue sky, wings tipped, then turns and dives into the heather, rising again with something – a mouse, a vole – squirming in its talons. The breeze seems to be getting colder and stiffer. The weather here can change faster than you can sneeze; a breeze turns into a gale and a storm can blow in and it can be sunny again all in an afternoon. I look at Alex, her face set against the wind, her eyes squeezed to look at the horizon; she looks older than me, braver. Then she turns and smiles, and something tugs in my chest.

I want very much to know what she knows. There is so much that she understands that I don’t, and I want to know what that is. I want to know everything.

‘Rebekah, come and help us.’ Mary is now right in front of me. She hands Peter over to me. ‘Help carry him.’ Peter mithers and nuzzles his face into my neck. He’s heavy now, too heavy to be carried such a long way, but too little to walk. Mary rubs her back.

‘Where are we going anyway?’ Alex asks.

‘To the beach,’ Ruth says, putting Paul down and letting him run on a little on his unsteady legs. ‘Just over there.’ She points to the place where I can see the others, grouped together, looking down at the beach. ‘There is a miracle apparently. Thomas found it.’

I carry Peter on my back, zigzagging along the path until I make him giggle.

‘Silly Becca!’ He squeals. ‘Silly!’ He tugs at my hair.

As we get closer to the cliffs, the land stops abruptly and falls down into the sea and the beach comes into view, a long curve of sand with rocks at either end where seals live. In the middle of the beach there is the surprise of a new mass, dark against the sand.

‘What the hell is
that
?’ Alex asks.

We stop and look down at the beach. It looks like a long rock, black and glistening, except for the familiar shape of its tail. The men are already gathered round it.

‘I think it’s a whale,’ I say. Sometimes you can see them offshore in the water, slick shapes rising against the waves. Once I saw a whole pod of orcas breach the water, around the cliffs by the Solitary, chasing seals, turning the water red with the blood of their kill. Naomi’s prophecy echoes in my head and a shiver runs through my body.

‘Jonah!’ Mary crosses herself.

Alex runs ahead of us. ‘Wow! Is it still alive?’

‘Of course not!’ Mary says irritably. I have seen dead dolphins and seals on the shore, but never anything as big as this.

‘Whale,’ Peter says. ‘Whale!’

The cliff slopes down into dunes, which give way to beach. Peter and Paul, excited, their tired legs forgotten, run on ahead, At the high-water mark is all the rubbish that gets pushed up the beach, driftwood, knots of fishing line, rope, broken lobster creels, plastic bottles and torn bits of tarpaulin, even a doll’s head and an old shoe crusted with salt. Occasionally we come and collect it, and Micah sees if there’s anything we can use and buries the rest in a pit. There is a dead gull trapped in the fishing line, half rotten, its wing already a skeleton.

‘Eugh.’ Alex jumps over it. ‘Disgusting.’

As we get closer we can smell the whale. It’s not bad yet, but it’s a fishy dead smell that on a hot day will quickly turn to a stink. Seagulls scatter as we approach. There are great scars and tears on its flesh. Crabs scuttle about in the sand near one open wound. It’s huge. Taller than me, even though it’s ploughed into the sand, its enormous mouth open. The low tide laps about its tail, Alex gets her shoes soaked going to look. Its blue-black skin is rough with barnacles and wrinkles and beneath that the layer of white blubber that sailors used to melt down for candles. Daniel told me all of this. He knows more about the seas than anyone here, as he used to work on the rigs. He has faded tattoos on his forearms that say
Love
and
Mother
and
Sinner
in uneven blue letters. He said he did them himself in the days when he used to live in darkness.

Mr Bevins has gathered the men together in a circle and is saying prayers. He opens one eye and looks us but he does not stop. He is saying something about how God has sent us this as a sign that the Rapture is nigh.

The whale is on its side, and its slack mouth seems to be smiling sadly. I think of Jonah. How frightening it must have been for him, trapped in the dark, inside the belly of such a huge beast.

‘Do you think he was afraid?’ I whisper to Alex, looking into the grey darkness of its mouth, thinking out loud.

‘What, the whale?’

‘No. I meant Jonah.’

‘Which Jonah?’

‘Inside the whale when he got swallowed.’

‘Eh? Who got swallowed?’

‘In the Bible – Jonah and the Whale. He got swallowed by a whale because he had been disobedient to God.’

‘Oh!’ She gives me one of her are-you-stupid looks. ‘Rebekah, if you got swallowed by a whale you’d, like,
totally
die. You’d
suffocate
or drown if you got swallowed by that thing.’ She says this really loudly. Mary prods her and Mrs Bragg turns round and shushes her.

Looking at the size of the whale, I know she must be right. How could anyone survive inside for three days?

‘Well
that
was one of God’s miracles,’ Mrs Bragg hisses, giving Alex a look like she should know better.

Alex tuts at her. ‘Yeah. Like maybe Santa lives at the North Pole and there are tooth fairies too.’ She’s still talking loud enough for people to hear.

Mr Bevins finishes his prayers with a booming
Amen!
Some at the front are crying.

Hannah wipes her eyes. ‘We are so blessed,’ she says.

‘Indeed we are! What do you say to that?’ Bevins says, looking at Father. ‘After all your doubt?’

Father still has his eyes closed and his head bowed. He mutters an
amen
and looks up at Mr Bevins.

‘Forgive me,’ he says.

Mr Bevins bounces on his toes. ‘See how the sinner repents in the face of God’s miracles!’ He goes over to Father and gives him a big hug. ‘God loves you and forgives you,’ he says. ‘Being prepared for the End Times is why we are alive! This is what we strive for, and just when the road is rocky and difficult he sends us this encouragement, Brothers and Sisters!’

He points at the whale as if he himself has made it appear.

‘This! This is the sign! For so long – so, so long – I’ve been carrying all your hopes and dreams, and here is the divine confirmation! In a week’s time He will come and claim us for his own! We must prepare, Brothers and Sisters! Let there be nothing else in our heads apart from the glory! In five days on the stroke of midnight, He will come. In the last weeks I’ve been visited by so many visions and prophecies which have gathered like dark shadows in my mind, but today, all is revealed! As clear as day and night! Naomi has seen it too. I prayed with her only this morning before we found this miracle and she gave me a verse which points to the hour and the time. Our faith is rewarded!’

He beams as if the light of heaven itself is shining through his eyes. Sometimes there is something so passionate, so convincing about him that it’s hard to ignore. I think about Mother up there in heaven. But after all the years of longing, it’s an anticlimax to think that this will happen now. I look at Alex, who is idly drawing patterns in the sand with her shoe. Squiggles and hearts. And I know that there is something else I want now, more than to go to heaven, I want to leave the island with her and explore the world that she knows, understand the things that she has seen. Maybe I’ll get left behind, but maybe I don’t care, if it means I get to be with her. I don’t want the Rapture to come. I’m not ready.

FOURTEEN

ALEX

‘Walk with me,’ he said.

The minute he’d stopped speaking Bevins came up to me, all sneaky and pulled me away from Rebekah. I didn’t like to be separated from her. When we were together I felt I was safe. I think she had begun to understand this too and she stayed close to me until Mr Bevins tutted with impatience and told her to run along and join the women.

‘It’s OK,’ I whispered to her, squeezing her arm.

I felt sorry for her. It wasn’t fair to keep her here like this, growing like a mushroom in the dark, so utterly ignorant about the world. She might know about the sea and the tides and the weather and the crops, but what did she know about life? Her father seemed to ignore her and spend most of his time following around after Mr Bevins, and ever since she was a little girl she had been taught it was all going to end anyway, so what was the point of asking for more from her life? Now Bevins seemed convinced it really was about to happen. That the end was indeed nigh. This was not good.

Then Bevins put his arm around me, pulled me close. ‘You brought this,’ he said, pointing at the whale. ‘
You
made this happen.’

I laughed. ‘No, I didn’t! How could I?’

It was a great lump of dead blubber, huge and stinky, rotting and collapsing in on itself. It had nothing to do with me. Or with anybody. It was just what happened when things washed up on the beach, dead. It was unusual, but it wasn’t anything special. A dead animal, that’s all.

He laughed too, but not because he thought I was funny. ‘Child, child, child. The world is governed by laws beyond our understanding. Everything is a sign, and every sign is a message. We only have to know how to read it. Don’t spurn your gifts.’

And he pulled me closer, which made me tug away, except I couldn’t because he was determined, strong, and because right next to me, as if from nowhere, there was Thomas, pressing into me. Squashing me between them, as if they’d like to crush me.

I could see the others in front of us in a line, Mary and Rebekah and the boys at the back. Rebekah turning every now and then to look back, but Bevins waited until they had climbed the brow of the hill and then it was just us, and I was scared.

‘So, what d’you think of young Thomas here?’ he asked, in a kind of insinuating voice, nudging me.