The Chrysalid Conspiracy

by A. J. Reynolds

  “Joe? Get out of my mind, your logic is scary,” she muttered to herself. Pulling a short-handled dinner fork from her pocket, she painfully turned the barbecue.

  The other two girls eventually joined them. “It’s a bit difficult to get your head round,” said Carrieanne. She sounded quite sceptical.

  Amelia spoke up with a new conviction.

  “Carrieanne,” she emphasised. “I don’t care whether you believe us or not. You wanted the story and you’ve got it. We’re not asking you to believe it, just to entertain the possibility. We believe it because we’ve lived it, and if your sister can solve this riddle we might just get some idea of what’s going on. Can you stick with us till then please?”

  Rayn smiled to herself. Together with her tone of voice and body language Amelia had oozed a confidence that she hadn’t seen in her before. It’s about time, she thought.

  Amelia turned to Rayn. “I presume you told her about the book and the riddle?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Rayn. “I hope you never become a cop, Caz. I’d hate to come up against you in an interview room.” Turning to Amelia she added, “I’m sure she has my gift.”

  “Serves you right,” laughed Amelia. “Now, let’s get some food. I’m starving and that smells great.”

  While they ate, they discussed various aspects of the conspiracy theory. Once again Amelia was grateful for Rayn’s sense of humour that kept things light and pleasant, especially when Rayn said that Professor Melkins had ‘shown them what he was made of’.

  Carrieanne had cringed, but smiled.

  “Okay,” Carrieanne said, at last. “Let me stretch my imagination and sum up. You’ve formed a lot of insubstantial clues, innuendos, coincidences and hearsay together into a theory that everyone you know is involved with an organisation which is dedicated to manipulating your lives and beliefs to exert some sort of control over you. Even your mothers are not exempt. Is that about it?”

  “Er…yeah. You could put it like that, I suppose,” said Rayn, rather timidly. “What do you think?”

  “Well, several words spring to mind,” answered Carrieanne.

  “Such as?” demanded Amelia.

  Carrieanne looked at them, and with a gleam of triumph in her eyes took up the challenge. “Bearing in mind that you have no proof – not one tangible piece of evidence you can hold up – words like paranoid, delusional, insecure, and totally insane come to mind. Will that do for starters?”

  Amelia smiled, fully expecting Carrieanne’s reaction. Rayn, however, was furious.

  “We’re not unalike, then,” she said, with an insight that surprised Amelia.

  “What do you mean?” asked Carrieanne.

  “You just described your own life.” Rayn talked over Carrieanne’s objections. “You just described religious philosophy – manipulating lives and beliefs for control.”

  “That’s not true,” wailed Carrieanne. “We are all guided by God. He loves us all.”

  “Prove it,” Rayn shouted. “Go on, show me some – what was it? Some tangible piece of evidence. Go on – prove God exists.”

  “I don’t have to,” Carrieanne shouted back. “You only have to look around you to see His wonders.” She pointed at Horace, contentedly munching away. “Look at that magnificent beast. Is he not one of God’s great gifts to us?”

  “He’s a horse,” said Rayn. “Are you saying your God doesn’t love him?”

  “Of course not. He loves all things.”

  “Then why would he be a gift to us?” Rayn was really fired up now. “Anyway, if God exists at all, He doesn’t do gifts. He does loans, using your soul as collateral.” She was defiant and defended her corner well.

  “Shut up! Both of you,” interrupted Amelia. “Caz is entitled not to believe us, and we can’t make her. Come on, the food’s ready. Eat up and call it a draw.” It wasn’t an order, but it was pretty close.

  The argument was reduced to a discussion. Rayn actually had Carrieanne laughing several times throughout her many diatribes.

  “I’m an atheist,” she went on. “I’ve always been an atheist and I’ll be one till the day before I die. In the meantime I’ll enjoy life as it is. Look at this, a bacon barbecue butty, a bright cold winter’s day, an open fire surrounded by trees. Life doesn’t get much simpler than this. I’m going to live forever, even if it kills me.” she announced.

  “Trees, life…Of course! Why didn’t I see it before?” Claire jumped up. She’d been sitting quietly thinking, not paying any attention to the proceedings. “I think I’ve got it.”

  “What? The Rayn in Spain?” quipped Rayn. It sailed past Claire without impact.

  “That’s it,” said Claire. “The tree is blind. The tree of life is blind.” She then looked at Rayn, who had actually stopped eating. “It seems that there is some information in a book about history – or prehistory. I don’t know how far back. Probably before religion started.”

  “Isn’t that blasphemous?” accused her sister.

  “Don’t be stupid, Caz. It must have been invented at some time, good and evil are purely human concepts, Animals don’t hate, they just have an instinct for survival.” was her reply. “Now shut up, I’m thinking.” She pondered a little longer. “I assume you’re reading this book at the moment?” she asked Amelia.

  “Yes,” said Amelia. “And it’s very hard going.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Claire told her. “I think you’re reading two books at once.”

  “What? What do you mean?” It almost made sense to Amelia before she asked the question.

  “Okay, we’ll do the easy part,” said Claire. “The terms prime, indivisible, not by halves, all point to a clumsy reference to prime numbers. Truth in paragraphs, start at two. They cancelled one as the first prime number some years ago, so two is the first. So, if you read the paragraphs that correspond to the prime number series it should give you Professor Melkins ‘science of truth’, whatever that may be.”

  “What’s this ‘tree is blind bit’, then?” asked Amelia.

  “Well, I must admit I was stuck on that, but it was when Rayn said something about trees and life that I got it, and the rest all fell into place.” Without elaborating she turned to her sister. “Caz, how do you get to heaven without dying? How could you ‘scorn the Styx’?”

  “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?” said Carrieanne.

  “Caz, how do you get to heaven without dying?” she repeated. “You know, so tell them.”

  Carrieanne stood very still. Lemonade in one hand and half-eaten pork chop in the other. She said one word, just above a whisper. “Armageddon?”

  “Armageddon?” repeated Rayn.

  “Exactly.” said Claire. “Blind the tree of life and all things die.”

  Carrieanne was in a daze. Speaking softly she quoted “Except the true believers, who the Lord will save.” She was visibly shaking.

  Amelia broke in. “And if God doesn’t exist? It’s a warning. Melkins discovered something in the past that will help us stop Armageddon.”

  “I don’t think that’s exactly correct,” answered Claire slowly. She took a piece of chicken and chewed on it, burning her mouth. She was the only one still eating.

  The unusual January sunshine seemed to glisten on her dusky face. With those long eyelashes under a canopy of deep black hair, she looked an unlikely sister to the pale, English rose looks of Carrieanne.

  To Claire this was an academic exercise. Outcomes, consequences or implications had no bearing. Only the resolution of the problem at hand was of importance. The rest had no meaning in her eyes.

  “It’s a place. I think he means that some can be saved if they go there,” Claire announced, still eating.

  “Excuse my sister,” Carrieanne found herself saying. “She likes some food with her tomato sauce.”

  “Mmm, this chicken is good. What did you do to it?” Claire was in raptures and was talking with her mouth still full. “You know, it’s a very bad riddle. There are
no blind allies, no red herrings. Get one bit right and the rest just falls into place. It makes the rest easy.”

  “The rest?” said Amelia, still struggling with the original concept.

  “Well, if you’re going to believe all this, you had better hear the scary bits.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?” enquired Rayn, trying to hide her growing anxiety.

  “As I see it,” Claire explained, “there’s a group of people who want to recreate a time before history to try and save some of the human race from some kind of disaster.”

  “Forest dwellers? Hunter gatherers?” Rayn was intrigued.

  “You mean a sort of re-start?” said Carrieanne. “Like Noah’s Ark?”

  “Yes,” answered Claire. “If Noah’s Ark actually happened, that is. I suppose if you believe all this it follows that it may have happened before. We don’t have enough information to make a judgement on that.”

  “This is getting really scary,” complained Rayn.

  “Oh no,” Claire said to her. “The next bit is the really nasty part – if you accept all this as gospel. Oh, sorry, I don’t believe I said that…”

  “Claire!” Amelia’s voice was loud and sharp. The look on Claire’s face showed that she accepted Amelia’s authority.

  “Sorry,” she said. “There’s another group who actually want Armageddon to happen.”

  “But why?” blurted out a terrified Carrieanne. Claire looked her sister in the eyes.

  “Remember, Caz, and I quote. ‘When Armageddon comes, the Lord will take the true believers into His Kingdom to dwell in paradise, while the others will rot in a hell of their own making.’ The Gospel according to daddy?”

  “The church?” Carrieanne’s eyes were wide open with amazement and fear. “It can’t be true. It’s impossible. It just can’t happen.” She was almost hysterical. “I don’t believe it.”

  Rayn saw her chance and weighed in again, mercilessly. “You don’t believe it because you don’t want to Carrieanne. Just because it goes against everything you’ve been taught to believe in. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that all this brainwashing may be nothing more than a control system? That the church may have invented heaven and hell as a threat or a reward for doing as they say. If evil is such a bad thing in the eyes of your God, why are humans so good at it? Ask yourself that.”

  Caz burst into tears, the central pillar of her being was under attack and she had no answers to fight back with.

  “You don’t know that.” she cried out in desperation. “All we are and all we have must be for a purpose, otherwise why are we here? What’s the point of it all?”

  Amelia tried to smooth things over. “Caz,” she said gently. “We agree that life must have some purpose, but this self-denigration before some unlikely creator? Trying to measure up to some indefinable set of rules? Really?”

  Claire saw the state her sister was in and turned to Amelia. “Anyway,” she said in a loud voice. “This is all conjecture and highly improbable. I don’t believe a word of it.” Then, giving Amelia a surreptitious wink continued quietly. “Read that book. The only thing that holds this together for me is that it accounts for Melkins’ secrecy and death. And next time try a little more tact, you’ve no idea how deep her religious beliefs go, thanks to our dear Daddy.”

  She took Carrieanne by the arm and turned her away. “Come on Caz, we have to hurry.” Then she said in a strong voice, “You can tell me the rest of this unlikely story on the way home. Bye guys. Thanks for the barbecue,” and they made their way down the path and out of the clearing.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” commented Rayn. “Now we’ve lost both of them. I’m sorry if I over did it a bit, but I did warn you.”

  “No,” answered Amelia. “You didn’t hear what she said at the end. Claire’s with us. She’s just looking out for her sister. By the way, Armageddon doesn’t mean ‘the end of all things’. It means the final battle between good and evil. I looked it up.”

  “Well then,” replied Rayn. “As soon as we find out whose side we’re on, we’d better concentrate on our fighting skills, hadn’t we?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Life returned to a semblance of normality over the next few weeks. Amelia and Rayn returned, reluctantly, to school. Things there had become a great deal worse now that Miss Dempsey was the official Head Mistress. Her policy of strict adherence to discipline and Catholic principles and her intense dislike of the two girls made it almost unbearable. Their attempts to join in any school activity, including javelin or archery, were blocked at every turn, and even the library was off limits, unless they were supervised and their book withdrawals were logged. The over-reaction by the staff to their slightest infringement was enough to keep other pupils away.

  The person they saw most of was the caretaker, an oily man in his thirties who believed himself to be irresistible to young girls. He tried to act smooth but he came across as slimy. Amelia and Rayn became used to the fact that he was always within hearing distance outside the classrooms.

  Bridie was working flat out in an effort to build up her stock for Valentine’s Day. She was sporting a plaster on her thumb and blamed it on her new tools rather than the alternative. She saw a lot of Antonio still, which pleased him. It also pleased Rayn, who used it as an excuse to stop over at Amelia’s more often.

  Lucy carried on as best as she could, but Amelia was aware that her mother had less stamina and grew tired more quickly, but refused to discuss the problem and it caused Amelia some anxiety.

  Sambo hated working under pressure, but he did enjoy what he did and, having learned to work more quickly, he was determined not to let anybody down. Not only could he produce more, but his skill at woodcarving improved beyond measure. Under the guidance of George, his knowledge of wood and its properties had also increased.

  George, too, had become very busy. He had landed a contract to work on some Heavy Duty four-wheel drive off-road vehicles in his garage and was devoting much of his time to it. He was putting in a lot of hours and kept Nigel busy as well. Amelia was curious about this, as she knew that George didn’t need to work too hard to survive. But she kept her nose out and said nothing.

  Nigel was looking after the twins in the mornings, getting them ready and off to school so that Molly could go jogging with the two girls. Amelia had taken charge of distance and pace, a job she relished and tended to push things a lot harder. Rayn and Molly didn’t complain and seemed to enjoy it.

  It made things a bit hectic when they got back to the shop, with three of them trying to shower and get changed, but it didn’t take long to work out a routine.

  The big surprise had been that, as Nigel was now working extra hours with George, Mrs Ghote, the district midwife who was on maternity leave, had offered to take the boys any time she was needed. Her three children went to school with them so it was no problem, she’d said.

  Her husband, who was a chemist, owned and ran a small Herbal Remedies shop in the village. Amelia and Rayn had often wondered how they made a living. The shop didn’t do much business and Mrs Ghote worked for the NHS, not renowned for their extravagant wages. But when they discovered he worked part-time at the Hall, they just shrugged and accepted what had become to them almost inevitable.

  February arrived with a pleasant surprise. Carrieanne and Claire had been told by their father that they wouldn’t be needed and could visit Amelia and Rayn whenever they wanted. Claire had known that this was just his way of ingratiating himself into their confidence to gain more information. Carrieanne didn’t care about his motives; this was a limited freedom they’d never enjoyed before.

  The archery equipment had turned up along with some very blunt throwing knives, a couple of old javelins and a pair of tortured ‘epee’ fencing swords. Nigel suggested they spend a Sunday morning at the caravan site trying it out. In the end, the four girls, along with Nigel, Molly and the two boys, spent all that first Sunday there.

  George turned up to c
heck everything and make sure everyone was aware of safety procedures. He handed Molly a bag of food and suggested she cook the barbecue.

  Leaving Nigel in charge, he left to spend the day with Lucy, Bridie and Antonio. Amelia gave him a hug and a kiss and thanked him. “Hey,” he had said, “I don’t have to cook or wash up. It’s a no lose situation.”

  Carrieanne and Claire showed little interest in the sports side of things, but found they adored looking after the boys, once they got the hang of it. They coaxed Horace into letting them all ride him, much to Rayn’s consternation. She knew what damage those huge hooves could do.

  The only hitch was when Zac let the rabbits out before the dogs were tied up. Panic took over for a few minutes but no one was hurt, or eaten.

  The day seemed to set a pattern. They found themselves out there most Sundays. The cold weather wasn’t a problem but the rain was a spoiler now and again.

  Lorraine turned up when she could, dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, hide jacket and one of Bridie’s hats. She usually brought a couple of bottles of wine with her, but, on Nigel’s insistence, they didn’t touch it until the sports practice was over and packed away. Sambo became a regular feature, with his mouth organ and dancing. They all noticed that he and Lorraine were often dressed alike.

  Amelia kept quiet whenever she noticed Rayn and Claire vanish into the woods looking for ‘edible fungi’ or some other excuse to snatch a cigarette.

  The vicar turned up once. He didn’t like cold weather or scuffing through dried leaves and bracken. He especially didn’t like the smell of Horace, who seemed equally offended by him. They waited for him to leave before dragging out the targets.

  Rayn was pleased. Her pond water sample had proved inconclusive and she’d seen more wildlife on the meadows. Even a rare snipe pecking at some water snails and worms, followed by an army of twitchers armed to the teeth with cameras and binoculars. Some mallards and widgeons had moved in and her magnificent mute swans had stayed for a few days. Still no herons though, and she worried about the fish.