I do not know how to get in. I have walked around the entire perimeter of the wall and there are no other entrances save for the two gates I have already seen. I try banging my fists on the main gate, but soon my knuckles are sore. I walk back to the smaller gate and pick a small stone from the ground. I knock it against the wood, over and over again. Then the barking starts, loud and ferocious, and my blood turns cold at the thought of sharp yellow teeth and mad-dog eyes. But I won’t let them stop me. I kick at the gate in a fury. ‘Let me in!’ I shout. ‘Let me in!’
I slump to the ground in frustration. The barking turns to low growls and then to silence. I lean against the gate. It is warm on my back and I think I might have to stay here forever. There is nowhere else for me to go. Then I hear a scrape, a scratching. Just the tiniest sound. I think for a moment the hounds are back. But there is no growling or sniffing. It is a different sound I hear, a gentler sound. I jump to my feet and put my ear to the wood. ‘Hello?’ I say. ‘Hello. Is there anybody there?’ I hold my breath and I am certain that I can sense a shift in the air. There is somebody behind the gate and whoever it is, is listening to me. ‘Please,’ I say. ‘I know you are there. I just want to talk to somebody.’
I wait, and wait. Then just as I am about to bang on the gate again, there is a voice, a woman’s voice. ‘Who are you?’ it says.
My relief is so great that my words come too quickly, tumbling out over each other. ‘I am Alice Angel. And I’ve come to see Henry Prince!’
‘Are you another from London?’ asks the voice.
‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I am from Bridgwater. That is where I first saw him. In the town square.’
‘And what business might you have with Our Beloved?’
I don’t know what to say. I did not think I would have to give a reason to see him. I thought he would be here himself to welcome me. ‘I … I heard him in the town square,’ I say again. ‘He said … ’ I think hard, trying to remember the right words. ‘He said, “Follow me and I will show you paradise on earth.” So I am here. I came.’
There is silence again, save for the pounding of my heart. ‘Please,’ I whisper.
Then the gate rattles. There is the sound of metal on metal and a woman’s face peers out at me. She is young and soft-looking and as she gestures for me to follow her, I see that she is with child. ‘Alice Angel,’ she says. ‘What a beautiful name.’ She smiles at me. ‘My name is Glory.’
She closes the gate behind us and I stare in astonishment at the sight that meets my eyes. There is a whole village spread out before me, a tiny but perfect village. There is a cluster of pretty cottages, a majestic mansion and even a chapel, covered in stone carvings of the strangest creatures I have ever seen. There are lawns and flower beds and white gravel pathways gleaming in the morning sun. ‘I will take you straight to him,’ says the woman called Glory. ‘He will decide if you can stay.’ We walk through a central courtyard and pass a couple of women who are kneeling to tend the flower beds.
‘Good morning, Glory,’ they say. ‘We have been blessed with another magnificent day.’
‘Every new day we are blessed with is magnificent,’ Glory replies. She leads me along a narrow gravel pathway, lined with neat box hedges. The pathway winds around the side of the mansion and stops outside a white-painted door that is hung with a large golden cross. Two huge bloodhounds are spread out across the doorstep. They growl deep down in their throats, but Glory just pats them casually on the head. ‘Hush, now. You have done your duty,’ she says. We step over the hounds and Glory opens the door and beckons me inside.
We enter a large, dark hallway. The air is hushed and still and smells of wood smoke, fresh linen and the pungent perfume of freshly cut flowers. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust from the glaring sunshine outside to the dimness inside. Then I see thick rugs on a polished wooden floor and oak wall panels that gleam in the light of the handful of candles that are dotted about. Soft green fronds of pot plants spill out of ornate vases, and the walls are covered in flocked paper of red, green and gold. And everywhere there are flowers, of all colours and types. It would put the comforts of Lions House to shame. Glory stops and taps lightly on a door which is framed by long, red velvet curtains. ‘Wait here a moment,’ she says as she disappears into the room.
My legs are trembling. A thought comes to me that maybe this is what it is like to stand at the gates of Heaven. Will I be admitted? Will Henry Prince permit me to stay? There is a large mirror on the wall opposite. I look at the girl standing in it. Against the blackness of her gown and hair, her face is whiter than white. She looks exhausted and in need of pity. I know that I would help her if it were within my power.
The door opens and Glory reappears. Her eyes are glittering and she runs her hands over the protruding shape of her child. ‘He will see you now,’ she says, and stands aside to let me pass. I grab her hand, urgently.
‘But what shall I call him?’
She frowns briefly, as though I should already know the answer to this, as though the answer is as simple as saying the sky is blue. ‘Why, Beloved, of course,’ she says, before walking away.
I take a deep breath and step into the room. My eyes start to sting and as I rub at them and blink, I see horizontal clouds of smoke hovering, from wall to wall, across the room. The walls are red, a deep, crimson red, the ceiling too, and the curtains and the carpet. I have never seen a room like it. The colour folds around me and thrums inside me like a heartbeat. The room is breathing, as though it has lungs of its own. I want to reach across and touch the walls to see if they are real.
‘Welcome,’ says a voice. My hand flies to my mouth to quell a startled yelp. I peer through the smoke to the other side of the room, where half a dozen chairs are grouped around an enormous marble fireplace. ‘Come here, my child. So I can see you.’ His voice is as soothing as fat drops of sunlight and honey, just as I remember it to be. I walk towards him, my heart fluttering like a moth in my throat. He is sitting in a high-backed chair, so carved and ornate that it looks like a throne, and he is blowing great plumes of cigar smoke towards the ceiling. ‘So, my child,’ he says, and he looks at me for such a long while that I fear the moth in my throat will soon shoot from my mouth and hit him between the eyes. ‘What have you to say for yourself?’ he asks me.
There is so much I want to say that I don’t know where to begin. I am Alice Angel, I want to tell him. I am sixteen years old. I am not mad. But I am a bad person. I have done some terrible things lately. I want to be forgiven. I want to be a good person, the person they all expect me to be. I have seen you and I have heard you talk. I think you understand. Can you help me?
But his eyes have silenced my tongue. I had forgotten how shocking they are in their intensity.
‘Well?’ he says, at last. ‘I believe you wish to join us?’ I think he must have seen through the hair, skin and bone of my head, straight into my mind, to read my thoughts.
I nod dumbly.
‘Have you brought anything with you?’ he asks.
This time I shake my head.
‘What? Nothing?’ He tosses his head and his ringlets, as black and glossy as a horse’s coat, fall about his shoulders.
I stretch out my arms and show him my open palms. ‘I have nothing other than what I am standing in,’ I manage to say.
He looks at me sharply and his blue eyes turn dark and hard as granite. ‘You know that all property and riches are as dirt?’
I nod, not sure of what to say. But there is a sinking feeling inside me. I am doing it all wrong, and I am sure that any moment now, he will throw me out of the door.
He settles back in his chair and regards me thoughtfully. He strokes his beard slowly, as if it is a favourite cat. ‘You cannot enter the Abode unless you are prepared to give up all your earthly riches.’ His voice is softer now and I think that maybe all is not lost yet.
‘But I have no earthly riches to give up,’ I say. ‘I have nothing.’ I think of Mama’s jewellery box and how it is crammed with all manner of gems and brooches and pearls. If I had been better prepared, I would have stolen a pocketful.
Henry Prince sighs.
My chest is tight with panic now. ‘Please!’ I say. ‘If I had any riches at all, I would be more than happy to give them all up!’ I lower my head so he cannot see the tears in my eyes. I put my hand to my throat to try and still the frantic beating of my heart. It is then that I feel the chain around my neck and I quickly close my fingers around the gold locket.
‘Riches, great or small, must be sacrificed,’ he says. ‘The more you are prepared to give to God, the greater your reward will be here in this life,’
He means me to give up my locket, I know it. The only thing I have left of Papa. I lift my head, meaning to protest, but there is such a look of sadness on his face, that the words die on my tongue. I squeeze my eyes shut, ready to hear the worst of news.
‘Very well,’ he says eventually. ‘If you have no riches to give up, you may give up your labour to us instead. You will join the Parlour, if that suits?’
‘What … what is the Parlour?’ I ask, my voice shaking with relief.
‘Glory will show you. Go and find her. She will be in the gardens.’ He stands, and he is like a giant towering over me. ‘Now, child.’ He places a hand on my head. ‘You are blessed, and you have started the journey to forgiveness in this world. Go now, and I will see you in chapel tonight.’
I cannot believe it. I cannot believe he has said yes to me. I feel as though I have been given the greatest gift of all and, just as I saw the girl in the town square do, I want to fall to my knees and kiss his bare feet. But instead I just whisper, thank you. Then another word rises up from inside me and fills my mouth, and I say, louder now, ‘Thank you … Beloved.’