THAT EVENING, ABRAHAM CALLED to tell us that Luke had sent him a brief email from the hire-centre computer. ‘Mother’s no better. Stays in bed all the time except for the Circle of Fellowship and worship. Believes every single word old Stephen utters. Goes on about the Rule, etcetera, etcetera, every time she sees Luke.’
‘He might run away too,’ Zillah said. ‘Do you think he will, Abraham?’
‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I reckon he’s waiting to see what’s going to happen. I don’t think he’ll hang around too much longer, though. He’s busting to get some real education.’
‘What about Rachel and Saul?’ I asked. ‘Does he say anything about them?’
‘Only that they still go to worship along with everybody else.’ Abraham sounded disgusted. ‘For the life of me, I can’t work out why they’re all still there.’
So nothing had changed. I wondered what Father thought about at worship now that he no longer believed in Elder Stephen. I wondered if he talked to Luke about what was real and what was made up. Perhaps Luke was staying only because Father needed him to talk to.
Forgiveness. I pushed the word away. I wasn’t ready to forgive him, although I hoped I would be one day. I was beginning to understand that I had to find the real me before I could worry about him. I knew I was getting better — it was easier to breathe now, easier to believe happiness was good, easier to believe in the kind Lord. One day soon, I’d go to church with my family.
Zillah still watched me to make sure I really was getting better like I said I was. But as the time passed I stopped worrying about her worrying about me. She loved me, so of course she worried. I made sure I told her of each bit of progress, however small.
Now that I knew for certain I wasn’t a Faith girl and didn’t want to be, I was making a list of things the real Magdalene liked.
Bright colours. Pretty things. Funny things. Poems that made me laugh. Brothers and sisters. Aunts and uncles. Books. Running in the wind with Zillah. Wearing jeans and shorts. Pretty clothes. Learning.
A couple of weeks into April, I said to Octavia, ‘I’ve been wondering — are there other people like Elder Stephen?’
Her face became grim. ‘Hell, yes. History is riddled with them. Generally always men.’
And so I came to learn about Hitler, war, dictators and priests in the dark ages who kept the peasants ignorant so that they were easier to control. Over the next couple of weeks, she gave me printouts to read from blogs on the internet. ‘These are stories from people who’ve escaped from fundamentalist sects — that’s what the Children of the Faith are too, by the way. These are modern stories, some of them written this year.’
I read of beatings, isolation, blame, cruelty. Many of the posts were terrible, but they helped me. I wasn’t alone. There were others who’d left. They’d struggled, all of them, but they’d survived.
‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ I told Octavia. ‘We weren’t beaten, and I’ve still got family.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ she said.
Another day, after more reading and more talking, I said, ‘Can I work harder at this getting better stuff, Octavia? I’d really like to.’
She gave a shout of laughter. ‘Let’s go to it, chicken.’ She dug out a splodge of clay. ‘Make that into Elder Stephen. Tell him what you think of him, and, when you’ve said everything you want to say, squash him flat and lock him up in the dark.’
It was hard. I kept hearing his voice whispering of damnation, hell, fire and brimstone. I was an evil child filled with sin and iniquity. I couldn’t say the words hammering in my head. I was so angry I flattened him with both hands, threw him into the clay tin and thumped the lid on.
The next day, his voice in my head was fainter. My words came more easily. By the end of the week, I didn’t let him get one word past his skinny lips before I was shouting at him, saying all the things I’d felt for all of my life. I yelled at him too for the pain he’d brought to Father, for the damage he’d done to Mother. When I was done, I tore him into tiny pieces. ‘Don’t come back into my head ever again. You’re an evil old man. Stay away.’
Octavia put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Great work, Magdalene.’
Together, we locked him back in the tin.
That Sunday, I went to church with my family. The God that the pastor preached about was the nice Lord. For the first time ever, I enjoyed worship. I knew the real Magdalene was emerging day by day.
In bed that night, I let my thoughts drift. As often happened, Father’s voice came into my head, asking for forgiveness. Soon, I told him. Soon I’ll be able to give you an answer.
Mother lurked in the shadows. I pushed her away.
These days, when Daniel or Abraham rang, I felt the truth of it when I told them, ‘I’m getting better. I really am.’
‘Good on you, sis,’ Abraham said. ‘You’ve got guts. You’ll get there.’
Daniel said, ‘I’m very glad, Magdalene. I talked to the doctor you saw at the hospital here — she’s amazed you’re doing so well. Said you must be very strong. We’re proud of you, all of us.’
It warmed my heart to be able to talk to them both, but at the same time it made me miss Luke all the more. Abraham started sending the emails he got from him on to us, but Luke never wrote much. It was too dangerous, Abraham said, and it would be too dangerous for us to write to him. He was running a huge risk even to email Abraham. From what Luke did write, it seemed nothing much had changed with the Faith. Elder Stephen was still the leader. Mother still kept to her bed. The only real news was that Father had employed an elderly woman called Sister Angela to cook and clean.
‘Mother will hate that,’ Zillah said. ‘I’m glad we’re not there, Magdalene.’ She threw her arms round my neck and squished a kiss on my cheek. ‘Thank you for running away with me. You’re the bestest sister in the world.’
One afternoon, it was Miriam who came to collect me from Octavia’s. I was glad. I wanted to talk to her, to find out more about when she was banished.
When we got home, I asked, ‘Did you ever want to go back? Did you want to see Mother and Father and the rest of us?’
She plonked down on the sofa. ‘I never want to see Father again. Wouldn’t mind seeing Mother. I really missed you guys, and I was so angry Mother would have her baby and I wouldn’t even know.’ We talked for ages. She wanted to know what had happened after she was cast out. I was surprised. ‘Didn’t Daniel and Rebecca tell you?’
‘Course they did. But I want to know about you. I felt like your mother. Leaving you was the worst thing about the whole abysmally crappy situation.’
I leaned against her, relaxing only when she put her arm around me. ‘It was horrible,’ I said. ‘I thought you were really dead. I thought I’d killed you because you drew that picture of me. Mother wouldn’t say anything except that you were dead to us. Father heard me say your name the day after you went. He made me go to the bedroom and pray for forgiveness but he didn’t explain what dead to us meant.’
She jumped up to stride around the room, swearing. She grabbed a cushion and kicked it. The way she did it reminded me of Zillah booting the potato across the kitchen in Nelson.
I waited till she calmed down a bit and said, ‘When Esther came, she thought you were properly dead too until the day we saw you at the lake. After that she explained it all. It was hard to believe though.’
Miriam plonked back down beside me. ‘Arses. Arse religion. Arse people who believe the arse Elders. You know, I still can’t figure out how Father’s kept on believing all his life. He’s not dumb, he’s got to have questioned it.’
‘Luke makes him think.’ I told her about the scripture he’d read to us the day of Abraham and Talitha’s wedding.
She burst out laughing. ‘Little quiet Luke! Who’d have thought he’d be the one to throw the hand grenade at our stupid, godly father?’
Her words gave me a shock until I realised she didn’t know our brother any more. He was seven when she’d been cast out, and now he was fifteen with a plan for his future that would break our father’s heart. I said, ‘He’s going to leave the Faith. He wants to study religion.’
She shrieked with laughter. I knew it was funny, but it saddened me to know that much of her delight came from the pain Luke’s choices would cause our father.
The Easter holidays had started and my mind turned to the question of school. ‘Octavia, I’ve been thinking. All the reading about dictators and people who’ve left cults — it’s been good.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t mean it’s about good things. But it’s good to learn. I like it. Do you think I could go to school?’
As usual, she didn’t give me an answer. ‘Do you think you could?’
Memories of people staring at us in the hospital, in the airport, flooded my mind. ‘I don’t know. It’s scary. I feel sick when I think about it.’
‘As scary as going back and letting Elder Stephen preach at you?’ she asked.
I shook my head. She didn’t understand.
Her voice softened. ‘Magdalene, the first five minutes will be the worst. It won’t be easy for you but you’re much stronger than you realise.’
‘I’m not strong.’ If I was, I’d be at school like Zillah was. Daniel, Miriam and Rebecca — it hadn’t taken them long before they were ready to go to worldly schools. I was weak.
Octavia tipped my chin up with her finger. ‘Only a strong girl could have protected her little sister the way you’ve done. Zillah would have been lost and crushed without you. You saved her, Magdalene — you lost yourself for a while, but you kept going because she needed you. That takes guts and it takes courage.’
She left me to think about that until Rebecca came to collect me.