The Dark Light (22 page)

‘Alex?’

She doesn’t move.

‘Alex!’ I say more loudly. She sits up in her bed, and for a moment I think I must have got the wrong cell, that this is Naomi, not Alex. Because her hair is wild and her dress is ragged and torn and on her leg, where her tattoo used to be, there is a bandage that is dark with blood.

No
. I wish I could just break through the door and get her. ‘What have they done to you?’

She doesn’t answer. Instead she shields her eyes from the light. ‘Rebekah?’ She sounds strange; her voice is deeper, slurred.

‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘I’m going to get you out of here.’

She gets up from the bed and walks slowly, like an old person, towards me. All over her arms and legs are livid scratches.

‘What’s wrong with you? What happened to your leg?’

‘All bad,’ she says. ‘All bad.’ She scratches at her skin with her nails. ‘We had to take it off. Get rid of it.’

‘Get rid of what?’

‘The bad eye. It’s how it got in. It’s the reason everything got so messed up. They’re coming. Rebekah. I saw them. So many, they filled the sky, like birds.’

‘What did?’

‘Devils. I saw them. I really saw them . . .’ She trails off. ‘Who are you?’ She looks at me blankly.

‘Alex, it’s
me
, Rebekah. What happened to you?’

‘He came and he forgave me. But he can’t do anything. My badness, it’s inside. I can’t ever be rid of it.’ She shakes her head. ‘I’ve got to stay here and pray.’

‘Don’t be silly! We’re going to get you out of here, remember?’ I reach out to take her hand but she swats me away.

‘Get off!’ Her face is glazed with sweat and she smells strange. ‘You’re dirty!’

‘Are you sick? Why are you being like this? You’re acting really weird.’

‘I’m fine.’ She leans her head against the door so I can see her face close up. Her eyelids suddenly droop. ‘I’ve seen the light, that’s all. It’s so obvious. I should have seen it all along.’

‘Did they hurt you?’

She shakes her head. ‘I
told
you. He forgave me.’

‘Who?’

‘Bevins.’

‘You saw him today?’

She nods. He’s done something to her. She sounds like she’s speaking from underwater, and her movements are slow and treacly. I think about when we first got here and Jonathan was weird and the twins were fast asleep and she said they’d been drugged.

‘Did he bring you anything?’ I ask.

‘Just water,’ she says. ‘It made me feel sick.’

‘Alex, listen to me,’ I say very slowly in the hope that she will hear me. ‘I’m going to get you out of here, OK, but if he gives you any more to drink, throw it away. They killed all the animals today. In the barn – all the sheep and the goats, even the dog. We need to get away from here. We need to get help.’

‘OK,’ she says. Then she wanders away from me back to her bed. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. There’s nothing you can do that will make any difference. Our lives are already written.’

I press my head against the door in despair. Now what? Slowly, like a creeping chill, the thought that I will have to find a way to get off this island by myself fills me with dread. All our plans. We are supposed to do this together. ‘I can’t do it without you.’

But she doesn’t answer. She lies on the bed and pulls the blanket up over her head and stays still and rigid until eventually I have to leave, a lump in my throat so hard it’s impossible to swallow.

Cloud has descended on the Devil’s Seat and the air is heavy with the threat of rain so I walk back through the bog. I don’t care, even as my feet sink into the cold mud.

About halfway back it starts to get really deep and marshy – up to my knees in one place – and it is an effort to keep taking one step after another. I struggle forward, suddenly really cold, my teeth chattering, the lantern swinging wildly as I try to walk. Eventually I manage to bully my way through to firmer ground, but by the time I do I am worried that I have been gone long.

As I approach the farmhouse I can hear voices – there are people in the yard. Too late I realize I am still visible, my lantern swinging from my hand. I drop to my knees and quickly blow out the flame. There is a shout.

‘Over there! I saw it, over there!’

Then someone else shouts, ‘Get inside! Get inside!’

I run away down the path, over the gate into the field and push myself into the hedge, the hawthorn scratching my back and my arms.

They are coming, running along the other side of the hedge. Oh God, don’t let them see me.
Please
. I close my eyes and grit my teeth. I hold my breath till I think I might explode. Then a voice shouts: ‘This way!’

The footsteps run past me and further along the path and on towards Devil’s Seat. I let out a long slow breath before pulling myself out of the hedge. I walk slowly and carefully back towards the house, taking the long way, squeezing between the vegetable garden and the wall, treading on the soft soil of the flowerbeds so as not to crunch the stones on the path. I run across the yard into the shadows, pressing myself against the wall, and turn the corner to the front of the house. Lantern light dances in the window and there is the sound of muffled talking: people have come back from church. I wonder if they even know that I am missing. I open the front door very slowly and quietly. If I can get as far as the stairs, then I can pretend I’ve been in the attic with the boys all along.

The house smells of woodsmoke and people. A lantern on the table by the door throws a dim light into the hallway. Everyone is awake. I can hear talking, then a scream from the kitchen and someone bursts into the hallway. It is Hannah, quickly pursued by Mary.

‘Are you sure it’s worth disturbing his sleep over this?’ Mary is asking.

‘But I must tell him what I saw,’ she says. ‘The girl walks abroad even though she is locked up! Jonathan and Ezekiel think so too.’ She sees me and stops. ‘And where have
you
been, Rebekah?’

‘Upstairs,’ I say.

But she furrows her brow at the mud on my legs, my boots, my blue-knuckled hands.

‘Well, I went outside for a moment because I heard shouting. But I came back in because I was scared.’

‘He is about us,’ she says conspiratorially. ‘Now. I have seen him. A glow in the marsh towards the Devil’s Seat. A will-o’-the-wisp. A demon spirit. Many saw it. Jonathan and Ezekiel have gone to banish it. Mr Bevins must be told. Your father too.’

Mary Protheroe looks at me and raises her eyebrows. Hannah is so preoccupied with what she has seen that she’s not looking at me. Quickly I walk past her towards the stairs. ‘The noise woke me. I wanted to see what it was about.’

Mary Protheroe’s lips twitch into a little half-smile and she nods at me.

‘Go to your room, child, and pray,’ Hannah says. ‘We must bind cords of light around this house if we are to stop the devil from getting in. Cords of light.’ She knocks on the door of the living room and enters. I don’t stay to hear what she says.

TWENTY-TWO

REBEKAH

In the morning Mary is in the kitchen with the twins. She has given them small cakes made of potato, but there is no food for us. My belly grumbles. The light is the blue-grey of just-dawn and her frame appears shadowed against the window, thin and spectral.

She doesn’t even ask me where I’ve been. ‘Was she alive?’ is all she asks.

‘She’s not herself,’ I say. ‘She’s not well. What has he given her?’ We both look at each other. It’s like in the last few days a thought has grown between us that neither of us can say aloud.

Mary bites her lip. I want to cry like a child. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘
Ssshhhhh
. We’ll talk about this later, OK? When did you last eat?’

I don’t know. ‘Yesterday?’

She goes into the store and comes out with a sugar cube. ‘I am saving these for the boys, but you must have one.’

I suck on it and my bloodstream fills with the relief of a sudden chemical energy. It’s going to be OK, I tell myself. You’ve just got to be brave. But I don’t feel brave at all.

The other women come in – Hannah and Margaret and Ruth and Mrs Bragg. No one is sleeping much these days. Mrs Bragg says it’s because everyone’s hungry.

‘Doing wonders for my waistline, this is!’ she says idly, before Hannah silences her with a glare.

Then she notices me. ‘What is wrong with you, child? You look like you’ve seen the devil himself,’ she fusses, placing her hand on my forehead.

‘I had a bad dream,’ I say.

‘Perhaps it was a vision,’ she suggests earnestly.

She’s starting to sound more and more like a shadow of Mr Bevins. I look at her face. Even her features have changed, her mouth like his when she is speaking.

Mr Bevins has drawn up a rota that each of us must observe, a vigil of prayers in the church that we must keep until the Rapture comes. Hannah shows me a copy; her name is down for the evening, Mary at midnight tonight.

‘A final farewell to our lives in New Canaan,’ Hannah says. ‘Our waiting is over at last!’

My head spins with the weight of everything I’m about to do and I have to hold on to the table to stop myself from falling over.

The men finish building the bonfire, a trench for water is dug around it and piled up with branches from the hawthorn and rowan. In the middle they have made a pen where they will drive the last of our livestock, and placed around it are some of the carcasses which they did not bury. The crows and the seagulls have discovered it too, and sit around in the field waiting for their chance to peck at the corpses. The first thing they go for is the eyes, so now several of the sheep’s heads are grotesquely blinded. I stand and look at it when Mary sends me out to get some logs from the barn. Something in me hardens. This will not bring God down from heaven. How could something so monstrous be divine?

In the evening we gather even though there is no food. Bevins insists that we are to think about food, and about the meaning of our fast, but all we are permitted is a glass of water. All are here, expect Hannah who is keeping vigil in the church.

Mrs Bragg comes into the kitchen. ‘He’s asking for you.’

‘Who?’

‘Bevins.’

Even since yesterday he seems to have grown in stature. He towers over us all, even though he’s physically shorter than most of the men. I take in the water and pour a cup for everyone present. The atmosphere is so serious it makes me want to laugh, a kind of fizz in my stomach that will not be quelled, and I am not hungry even though I know I should be starving.

‘Did anyone visit the Solitary today?’ asks Ruth.

I freeze.

‘I have,’ says Mr Bevins. My heart stops in my chest. What did they find? Was she there? I want to ask but I can’t for fear of looking too interested. ‘Thomas and I went over this afternoon.’

I stare at the floor. I daren’t look at him, even though I am sure he is looking at me to search out my reaction. My face starts to get hot.

‘I spoke with Naomi and she asked to be remembered in our prayers. She will come among us on Sunday.’

And what about Alex? I want to ask. He’s deliberately withholding information about her, I know he is.

‘And the girl?’ Mr Bragg asks.

He sighs. ‘She brings trouble. The devil is so deeply embedded. We’re having to coax it out. There may yet be some damage to the vessel, but she is softening. Rebekah!’ I jump. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m well, thank you.’ What does he mean by damage to the vessel? What have they
done
to her?

‘And are you looking forward to meeting your maker?’

‘I am,’ I say. I am realising how this is like a game where I have my appointed role and all I have to do is say the right lines.

‘Look at me when I’m talking to you!’ I look up. It’s as if he’s trying to see inside my head, so intensely does he stare at me.

‘You’re lying,’ he says, ‘but it makes no odds. We will see who is left behind on Tuesday. Then we’ll know the truth. Call the women in.’

I go and get the others and we stand there at the door, our heads bowed. Mr Bevins then starts to tell us how he wants each one of us in white vestments on the final day. There’s cloth that he has been keeping for this occasion, and the women are to make simple robes from it, enough for everyone. Jonathan brings in a roll of white cloth from I know not where. It is spotted with black mould along the bottom.

‘It’ll need to be washed obviously. But it’ll give you something to keep you occupied.’

‘What pattern are we to use?’ Margaret asks.

He waves his hand as if he is being generous. ‘That’s not for me to say. You have more knowledge than me. Dressmaking is women’s work, and blessed it is too.’

Then, out of nowhere ,Jonathan asks if he can go to the mainland.

‘Just to see my ma again, like, before it all kicks off?’

Mr Bevins’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. ‘Brother Jonathan.’ He puts his arm around Jonathan’s shoulder. ‘Brother Jonathan, would that you could! Would that I could take you there myself. We would all like to see our mothers again.’ His voice is low and rich with fake sympathy. ‘But God has called us to be separate. To be here. To be first!’

Jonathan nods meekly. ‘Yes, yes, I know.’

‘Don’t think about leaving. Do not even let it cross your mind. It’s just a vile temptation whispered by the devil, put there to distract you.’ He swivels round to look at the rest of us in the room. ‘Do any of you want to leave? Speak now!’

I look at the floor and pray that he doesn’t pick on me. No one speaks.

‘How could we think such a thing?! After everything you’ve done to bring us here! We will follow you to heaven!’ Margaret of course, sucking up to him.

He seems satisfied then, and he takes Jonathan with him to the church to pray.

‘It is going to take a lot of washing to get those spots out,’ Margaret says, unrolling the fabric on to the kitchen table and scratching at the mould spots with her thumbnail.

‘If it ever does come out. We need bleach, which we don’t have. And a great deal of hot water,’ Mary says, sighing. She asks me to fetch more buckets of water from the water butt which leans up outside the house. At least with all the rain it’s full to overflowing, and we stoke up the fire to boil the water and get the tin bath and use some squares of hard soap to make a lather. Margaret cuts the cloth into thirty sheets; each one must be washed and scrubbed. I think about Alex. What did Bevins mean by damaging the vessel to get the devil out? My skin crawls with fear. She must be OK, she must.