After the Fire

by Will Hill

  “Thirty?” I say. “Maybe thirty-five?”

  “John Parson just let them go?” asks Agent Carlyle.

  “Father John said The Lord was testing us,” I say. “That the Third Proclamation had revealed those Brothers and Sisters who were False, whose Faith was just an act. He said the Legion would be stronger without them.”

  Agent Carlyle grimaces. “Sure,” he says. “If by stronger you mean more obedient.”

  “Do you think that’s what it was, Moonbeam?” asks Doctor Hernandez. “You told us Father John didn’t react to people leaving after the purge because he knew he had asserted his authority, that he’d ‘won’, as you put it. Was this the same thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think he wanted to lose people from the Legion, but I guess it was more important that it be full of people he believed were loyal.”

  “To him?” asks Agent Carlyle. “Or to The Lord?”

  I shrug. “There was no difference.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  No. Yes.

  “It doesn’t matter what I thought,” I say. “It matters what my Brothers and Sisters thought. And I’ve told you before. Most of them believed Father John was The Lord’s messenger on Earth. It wasn’t an act, or some bit of fun for people. They believed it with all their hearts.”

  “But what if—”

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” I interrupt. “I don’t know what was inside Father John’s head. I don’t know whether he was glad people left because it proved their Faith wasn’t strong enough, or because he wanted to get rid of people who wouldn’t do what they were told, or both. I don’t know if he was happy to see them go, or sad, or angry. All I know is that people left. They weren’t prisoners.”

  “Right,” says Agent Carlyle. “Even though Amos was the only man allowed to leave the compound and nobody was allowed to use a phone or watch TV or read a book and four armed men answered directly to a man who believed he spoke to God and handed out punishments that took months to recover from.”

  “I hate when you call The Base a compound,” I say.

  Agent Carlyle nods. “I know you do.”

  “People left,” I say. “Father John never stopped them. I could have left.”

  “Do you really believe that, Moonbeam?” asks Doctor Hernandez.

  I don’t answer him right away. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m genuinely not sure how.

  Be brave, whispers the voice in the back of my head. Be honest with yourself, if nothing else. Be strong enough to confront the reality, not the lies you were told.

  I do what it tells me – I look back, and I think, and I try to be strong. It’s painful, because there was a time, a long time, when I believed every single word Father John said. Before my mom was Banished, I believed in him, and in the Legion, with all my heart, and part of me misses – will always miss – the certainty that came with that, the power and pride that came with being part of something that was right and True.

  But then I think about my mom and Nate and the boxes and the locked door in the basement of the Big House. I think about my Sisters running towards the Governments with rifles in their hands and the five gunshots and what I found and what I did.

  I think about blood and fire, and my stomach churns.

  “I don’t know,” I say eventually. “I never tried to leave. So I guess I don’t know for certain.”

  Doctor Hernandez makes a long note in one of his books but, for what I’m pretty sure is the first time ever, it doesn’t make me angry. Instead, I feel a weird sense of relief, because talking about all this, about Luke and Honey and Nate and the Third Proclamation, has made everything seem unsteady, like the floor is rolling beneath my feet – and him writing about me even though I’m sitting right in front of him feels familiar, like something I understand.

  “What happened after the people left?” asks Agent Carlyle.

  “There was a celebration,” I say.

  “Of what?”

  “Marriage,” I say. “Father John took his second and third wives that night.”

  “That night?” asks Agent Carlyle. “The day he issued the Third Proclamation?”

  I nod.

  “Who were the lucky women?”

  “Bella and Agavé.”

  “Were either of them already married?”

  “Both of them were.”

  “And their husbands were still there?”

  I nod again.

  “How did they respond to Father John marrying their wives?” asks Doctor Hernandez. “What did they do?”

  What do you think?

  “They celebrated with the rest of us,” I say. “Father John led Bella and Agavé from the Chapel to the Big House and everyone lit candles and followed them.”

  “What do you imagine their husbands were thinking at that moment?” he asks.

  “I know exactly what they were thinking,” I say, because I do know, without a shadow of doubt. “They were praying their wives would serve Father John well.”

  The room falls silent for a long time as the reality I’m describing sinks in. As usual, it’s Agent Carlyle who finds his voice again first.

  “It’s going to take me a little while to get my head around all this,” he says. “So if it’s all right, I’d like to go back to Luke. Is that okay?”

  I nod.

  “You said there was no fallout whatsoever from what happened with you and him and Honey and Nate.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I find that a little hard to believe, Moonbeam.”

  I frown. “I’m not lying to you.”

  He raises his hands in a calm down gesture that fills me with the sudden urge to stab one of Doctor Hernandez’s pens into his eye. “I didn’t say you were,” he says. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just wondering whether there might be more to what happened? Whether you might’ve left something out?”

  “Nate never told anyone, at least as far as I know,” I say. “Neither did Luke, or Honey. The Centurions never got involved, and nothing official ever happened.”

  Agent Carlyle nods. “I don’t doubt that,” he says. “And Nate didn’t do anything himself?”

  “No.”

  “Did you?”

  I hesitate.

  He narrows his eyes. “Moonbeam? Did you do something?”

  Tell them, whispers the voice in the back of my head. Be brave. Tell them what you did…

  I wait about a week.

  I’m not stupid enough to believe that Luke will have forgotten about what happened – I doubt he ever will, not completely, and I’m absolutely certain he’ll never forgive me for it – but circumstances have forced my hand, so I’m just going to have to hope it’s been long enough for it to no longer be at the front of his mind.

  Long enough for him to have let his guard down.

  We had only been living at The Base for eighteen months when my dad died. He was patching up a section of fence near the north-west corner and just fell over. They rushed him down to the medical centre in Layfield, but he was gone. The doctors examined his body and told my mom and Father Patrick that there had been something wrong with his heart, something that nobody could ever have known about. They said that it would have been instant, that he probably wouldn’t even have known it had happened.

  I hope that was the truth.

  When I was older, maybe six or seven, my mom gave me a box of things that had belonged to him, things that she thought he would have wanted me to have. Before she handed it over to me, she made me promise not to tell anyone I had it. I promised, even though I didn’t understand why I had to.

  The box contained two knives, a seashell from the beach in Santa Cruz, a seemingly random page from his diary, a black-and-white photo of his parents, and a watch he had stopped at the exact date and time I was born. I’ve read the page of his diary hundreds of time and I look at the photo a lot, because I’ve never met any of my grandpar
ents. I don’t even know if they’re alive.

  The knives have folding blades and flat wooden handles on which my dad carved and painted a pair of bright yellow and purple sunsets. They’re only small, their blades short and not very sharp, but I love the feel of them in my hands. My dad must have held them in his for hours, working slowly at the handles with chisels and brushes, and so holding them has always felt like a way for me to be close to him.

  I try to clear my mind as I slip the knives into the pockets of my jeans and creep out of my room into the little corridor in the middle of Building Nine. It’s empty apart from six plain wooden doors that lead into six identical bedrooms and a plastic glow-in-the-dark cross hung on the wall at the end. My mom used to live here too, in the room next to mine, and I feel her absence as I head towards the front door at the end of the corridor – feel it as something almost physical, with weight and depth. I’m not supposed to think about her because it’s Heresy to do so, but the Centurions can’t see inside my head and neither can Father John. Which is a good thing, because I don’t think he’d like a lot of what he saw.

  I know the Centurions haven’t locked us in tonight, because I’ve been lying awake for three hours since lights out and I would have heard the sound of the padlock clicking shut. Someone came to see Alice about an hour ago, and I wrapped my pillow around my head until they were finished. Sometimes they make an effort to be quiet, and sometimes they don’t.

  The door handle turns in my hand, and I step carefully out onto the desert floor. There’s no moon tonight, and when there’s no moon in the desert, it’s really dark, so dark that I can only just make out the square outline of the yard in front of me. Like most of my Brothers and Sisters, I keep a little torch on my belt, but as I stand in the darkness next to Building Nine, shivering in the freezing night air, I decide not to use it. It would undoubtedly make things easier, but it would also massively increase the chances of someone seeing me.

  And I don’t want to be seen.

  I head towards the south-west corner of the yard, navigating by the faint glow of the stars and my internal compass and taking it very, very slowly. The building I’m interested in is part of an identical row of four, and if I end up inside the wrong one, I’m going to spend the morning being questioned by the Centurions and the afternoon inside a box.

  I creep around the yard, staying off the tarmac and focusing on what Father John always tells us about the Final Battle: You will be Calm, and you will be Careful, and you will Trust in The Lord, and you will be Triumphant.

  Calm. Careful. Triumphant.

  What I’ve got planned isn’t remotely what he meant his advice to be used for, but right now I’ll take anything that stops my racing heart from leaping out of my chest.

  Calm. Calm. Calm.

  I reach the front of what I think – I hope – is Building Twelve, and stand in the pitch darkness beside the door. I take a moment or two to try and compose myself, even though I know it might well be a waste of time: if I’ve got this wrong, I’ll know in a couple of seconds, and then how calm I am won’t matter in the slightest.

  I take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out. Then I take my dad’s knives out of my pockets, open their blades, and slowly – very slowly – turn the door handle. I’m half expecting the door to be locked, or to let out a screech of metal that wakes up the entire Base, but it slides open as smoothly and silently as if it’s hinges have just been oiled. I close my eyes for the briefest of moments, then step into the darkness.

  Buildings Eleven through Fourteen are barracks, long one-room buildings that house three of my Brothers and are totally identical inside and out, so even though I can see the deep black silhouettes of three beds lined up against the rear wall I still can’t be sure I’m in the right place. I stare at the narrow bunks, trying to breathe silently as I wait for my eyes to adjust, and after a seemingly endless moment, I see what I’m looking for.

  One of the three beds is empty.

  Leo, the ten-year-old who should be asleep in it, came down with a fever yesterday morning and was moved into Julia and Becky’s house next to the Chapel so they can keep an eye on him. Julia was a doctor and Becky was in medical school when they were Called onto the True Path, and they’ve saved at least a dozen lives between them in the decade since they joined The Lord’s Legion.

  Leo’s empty bed, right where it should be.

  This is the place.

  I tiptoe along the wall and stop beside the bed farthest from the door. I can see Luke’s head resting on the pillow, can hear the low rumble of his snoring. I stare at him, steeling myself for what I’m about to do. Then I crouch down, and press the knife in my left hand firmly against Luke’s throat.

  His eyelids flutter, and slowly slide open. Then they spring wide and his mouth opens but before he makes a sound I hiss into his ear.

  “Don’t make a sound and don’t move a muscle. I’ll cut your throat if you do.”

  He stares at me with utter incomprehension and I wonder if part of him assumes he must be dreaming, because surely no girl would ever dare creep into his room in the middle of the night and threaten him with a knife? Things like that simply do not happen to boys like him.

  “You’ll go in a box for this, you bitch,” he whispers. “You’ll—”

  I slide the other knife beneath the covers and place it between his legs. His eyes bulge in their sockets and he goes very, very still.

  “Only if anybody finds out,” I whisper. “And they aren’t going to, are they?”

  He just stares at me, his body as rigid as steel.

  “Are they?”

  “No,” he croaks, his voice barely audible. “I won’t tell anyone. Just don’t…please…”

  “If you ever go near Honey again,” I whisper, “if you even look at her or any of our Sisters in a way that I don’t like, I’ll come and see you again. And next time I’ll leave you bleeding like a castrated bull. Do you hear me? Am I being absolutely clear with you?”

  Tears brim in the corners of his eyes. Then slowly, and very carefully, he nods, the skin of his neck scraping against the blade of my dad’s knife.

  “Good,” I whisper. “Sweet dreams, Luke. The Lord is Good.”

  I withdraw both knives at the same time and I’m halfway across the room before he realizes they’re gone. I hear a noise that is somewhere between a retch and a sob, but then I’m through the door and heading back around the yard the way I came, forcing myself to ignore the adrenaline surging through my body, to move slowly and keep quiet and not undo all my good work.

  “Luke kept his word,” I say. “He never said anything to anyone, and he never went near Honey again.”

  “Did you worry he might come after you?” asks Agent Carlyle. He’s staring at me with an expression of such fierce pride that I can’t help but smile. “That he would want revenge for what you did?”

  I shrug. “I thought about it,” I say. “After that, I never went anywhere without one of my dad’s knives in my pocket. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.”

  “That’s right,” says Agent Carlyle. “That’s absolutely Goddamn right.”

  “What would the Centurions have done to you if Luke had told them?” asks Doctor Hernandez.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” I say. “I know we’d both have been in trouble, him for trying to break the Third Proclamation with Honey and me for threatening one of my Brothers. But I don’t know how bad it would have been, or who would have got it worse.”

  “That’s what you were counting on?” asks Agent Carlyle. “That he would be too scared of what might happen to him to report you?”

  I nod. “I knew he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Bullies are cowards,” he says. “Did anyone ever tell you that?”

  I nod again.

  “Who?”

  “Nate,” I say.

  Doctor Hernandez narrows his eyes, ever so slightly. “I think it would be best if we avoid using too many generalizations,” h
e says. “Let’s stick to what we can say with some degree of certainty, shall we?”

  “You’re the expert,” says Agent Carlyle, but he gives me another wink as he speaks and I try very hard not to let my smile expand into a grin.

  “So you took precautions in case Luke came after you,” says Doctor Hernandez. “Did he ever try anything?”

  I shake my head.

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “Because he was a bullying little shitbird,” says Agent Carlyle, “who pissed his pants when someone finally stood up to him.”

  Doctor Hernandez grimaces. “Please,” he says. “That really isn’t helpful.”

  “Sorry,” says Agent Carlyle, but he isn’t, not in the slightest. It’s written all over his face.

  Doctor Hernandez checks his watch. “We’ve overrun,” he says. “I don’t want to make a habit of doing so, but I think that was a highly productive session. I hope you agree, Moonbeam.”

  I frown, and look at the clock above the door.

  11.47.

  I talked for almost two hours.

  Holy crap.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Don’t apologize,” says Doctor Hernandez. “We made a lot of progress this morning. Some issues were raised that I would like to explore further, but they can wait until tomorrow. For right now, enjoy your lunch and try to get some rest before SSI.”

  “I’ll definitely try,” I say.

  Nurse Harrow smiles at me as she puts down a tray full of lasagne and French fries, and asks me how my hand is feeling. I tell her it’s okay and she nods before leaving the room and locking the door after her.

  I eat at my desk, trying to work out whether I really do feel better because of the things I said during this morning’s session – better and somehow lighter – or whether my mind is playing tricks on me, like when you tell someone what they want to hear even if it isn’t true. I’m still thinking it over when Nurse Harrow returns and tells me it’s time for SSI.

  As we walk down the corridor, I try to prepare myself for what I’m going to say and do if Luke isn’t there and what I’m going to say and do if he is. I told Doctor Hernandez and Agent Carlyle the truth – I do feel genuinely sorry for him, for the life that was inflicted on him inside the Legion. But that doesn’t mean I trust him, or that I’m going to be stupid enough to turn my back on him.