After the Fire

by Will Hill

  Part of me wants to tell them.

  Because as I explained what Father John did to Honey, as I found myself back in the yard and felt the warmth of the sun and heard the voices of the men and women I used to call my Brothers and Sisters, I felt the weight around my shoulders – the one I’ve been carrying with me for what feels like for ever – lessen again, ever so slightly.

  There’s a knock on my door before it swings open and Nurse Harrow, as kind and smiling as always, tells me it’s time. I smile back, then get up and follow her out into the corridor.

  The atmosphere in the Group Therapy room is different today.

  Luke’s absence still hangs over everything, and I hear the word “Ascend” several times as my younger Brothers and Sisters talk in low voices over colouring books and toys, but the atmosphere in the room seems somehow lighter. It feels like they’re no longer checking over their shoulders, or overthinking everything they say in case it gets them in trouble. Part of me wonders whether they ought to be more sad, that a matter of days shouldn’t be long enough for them to have seemingly moved on from the death of someone they knew their entire lives, but I don’t raise the issue, and neither does Honey – I think we’re both just happy to let them play.

  The two of us are sitting at a plastic table in the corner of the room, watching Jeremiah and Aurora chase each other back and forth as three of the others count backwards from fifteen, their voices rising to excited screams as they reach zero. The rules of the game are totally incomprehensible to me, but that’s okay.

  “Some of them will be all right,” says Honey, as though she can see the question I was considering on my face. “Not all of them, maybe not even most of them. But some of them will be okay.”

  I shake my head. “Everyone they know is dead.”

  “Little kids are resilient,” says Honey. “What happened will always be with them, but they’ll move on. And I’ll tell you something else, even though it sounds crazy right now – they’ll manage to forget about it, most of the time at least.”

  “Their heads are still full of what Father John taught them.”

  She shrugs. “They’ll learn new things.”

  I look at her. I want to believe what she’s saying, that Doctor Hernandez and his colleagues will just pluck all the lies out of their heads and replace them with new things, helpful, truthful things, and patch over the cracks, and then everything will be great. But I look at Jeremiah and Aurora and Rainbow and all the others, and I see nightmares that will never completely leave them and wounds that will never fully heal.

  I see long roads ahead, for all of them.

  “When did you stop believing?” I ask Honey. “In the Legion, and Father John. When did you see through it?”

  She frowns. “I never believed,” she says. “I realized it was all bullshit as soon as I was old enough to think for myself, same as you did.”

  I feel embarrassed heat rise into my cheeks.

  Honey narrows her eyes. “Not the same as you did?”

  I shake my head. “My Faith started to fail after they Banished my mom,” I say. “Until then, I was a True believer. I thought you knew that.”

  “I didn’t,” she says. “I always thought we were the same.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her frown turns into a wide smile. “Don’t say that,” she says. “You saw the truth in the end. That’s more than most people did.”

  “How come you saw it straight away?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “It just always seemed obvious to me that the only person really benefitting from The Lord’s Legion was Father John.”

  I stare at her, my mind reeling.

  So simple, when she puts it like that. So very clear. So why did it take me so long to see it? Why couldn’t I be as clever as her?

  “So what would you have done?” I ask. “If the fire hadn’t happened?”

  “Left,” she says instantly. “As soon as I was old enough that they couldn’t send me back to my mom. Wasn’t that what you were going to do?”

  I nod. “I think so,” I say. “Until those last few days I was promised to Father John, so my plan was to leave before they made me marry him.”

  “And find your mom?”

  “I guess so,” I say. “I mean, yeah. If she’s still out there.”

  “She’s out there,” says Honey.

  “How do you know that?”

  She smiles at me. “I have Faith.”

  I smile back. “What about your mom?”

  Her grin fades, and grief flickers across her face. It’s barely there, but I see it. “What about her?”

  “She wouldn’t have gone with you, would she?”

  “Not a chance,” says Honey. “She was a Legionnaire to her bones. She didn’t know how to be anything else.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  She considers my question for a second or two. “I do,” she says. “I really do. But I don’t think she could have survived outside The Base, so part of me thinks it was a kindness. You know she was ill, right?”

  I nod. Astrid’s illnesses, which some unkind members of the Legion suggested got worse whenever she was asked to do something she didn’t want to do, were well known.

  “She believed she would Ascend when she died,” says Honey. “She believed it with all her heart, so I guess she got what she wanted, in the end. If she had made it through the fire and been forced to sit in a room while Government agents tore holes in everything she believed in, it would have destroyed her. So I think maybe it was for the best.”

  I look at her. I don’t know what to say.

  “And who knows?” says Honey, giving me a grim smile. “Maybe they had it right all along. Maybe she’s in Heaven right now, sitting at the side of The Lord.”

  I nod. “Maybe.”

  In the middle of the room, the frantic shouted countdown reaches zero again. Jeremiah does a strange little dance, his arms and legs jerking back and forth as though he’s getting an electric shock, then throws himself flat on the floor, where Aurora and Rainbow leap on top of him. Everyone cheers and screams and yells, and Honey smiles.

  “Why did you do it?” I ask. “Why did you say no to marrying him?”

  She keeps her eyes fixed on our Brothers and Sisters, but I see a frown furrow her forehead. “What was I supposed to say?”

  “It would have been easier to say yes.”

  “You’re right,” she says. “It would have been easier.”

  We sit in silence for a little while, watching the children play.

  “You really think they’ll be okay?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I hope so. And I know one thing for certain, Moonbeam. Despite everything that happened, despite the fire and the loss and the grief, they’ve got a better chance now than they did. A much better chance.”

  I watch my Brothers and Sisters play and run and shout, their faces lit up with the simple pleasures of being alive and with their friends. Honey’s words, and her belief in human resilience, should make me feel at least a little better, given that it’s my fault that these children are here in this grey place without their families.

  It doesn’t though.

  At all.

  I stride across the yard towards Building Nine, my mind full of the look on Honey’s face as they closed the door of the box.

  I don’t think I’ve ever felt this angry. Ever. When they Banished my mom it felt like my heart was breaking, like it was actually physically breaking in my chest, but this is something else. I want to scream and howl and burn everything down and dance on the ashes and salt the earth so nothing ever grows again.

  Amos emerges from the shadows of the Chapel and blocks my way. “She’s getting what she deserves,” he says. “You get that, right?”

  I stare at him. My head is full of fire and the blood in my veins feels like ice water and I tell myself to stay calm, to calm down, because I won’t be able to help Honey if I get myself locked inside
the box right next to hers.

  I take a deep breath, and force a nod.

  Amos narrows his eyes. “Let me hear it,” he says. “Let me hear you say you understand.”

  “I understand.” My voice sounds like the growl of an animal.

  “I hope so,” he says. “Because this ain’t the time to do something stupid. Honey’ll take her medicine and be out before you know it, so you just go on and simmer down. The Lord is Good.”

  I stare at him. There’s no way he could possibly guess what I’m going to do, but Amos is smarter than he looks, a lot smarter, so I have to be careful.

  “Did you hear me?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “The Lord is Good,” I spit.

  His eyes narrow even further. The anger in my voice is clear and unmistakable, but I keep my gaze fixed on his and I breathe slowly and deeply and I wait and I wait and after what feels like hours but can only have been a few seconds, he steps to one side. I stride past him and across the yard without so much as a backward glance.

  I open the door to my room and lie down on the bed and force myself to wait. If Amos believes I’m going to be a problem, he’ll go straight to Father John and voice his concerns. In which case, I’ve probably got a minute – maybe two, at the most – before a Centurion appears at my door. So I wait.

  Five minutes, I tell myself. Long enough to be sure.

  I stare at the door, waiting for Jacob Reynolds to push it open and tell me that Father John needs to talk to me. I try to force myself to settle down, to be rational and considered and careful, but all I can see is Honey’s face and all I can hear is my mom calling Father John a snake-oil salesman, calling him a fraud and a liar to his face.

  Calm, whispers the voice in the back of my head. Stay calm.

  I can’t though. My insides feel like an electric current is being passed through them. It’s mostly anger, but there’s a little crackling ball of excitement there too. When something cruel or unfair happens to one of my Brothers or Sisters, my overriding feeling is usually impotence. But that’s not the case now.

  Not this time.

  Nate was very clear – he told me I was only allowed to use the cell phone if things got really bad. I know he meant really bad for me, but I think he will forgive me for the choice I’m about to make. Because if locking a fourteen-year-old girl inside a metal box with no food or water in the height of the Texas summer doesn’t qualify as really bad, then I can’t imagine what would.

  I check the clock on my little bedside table. Three minutes since I lay down. I can’t hear anything unusual outside, no shouting and no thud of approaching footsteps, but I make myself wait just a little bit longer.

  Two more minutes. Better safe than sorry.

  The thought almost makes me laugh out loud. Because the great shining truth at the heart of the only home I’ve ever known – the truth that I’m furious it took me so long to understand – is that nobody inside the Legion is safe, except for Father John and maybe – maybe – his four Centurions. We’ve been told time and time again, in sermon after sermon and Proclamation after Proclamation, that we’re safe inside the fences of The Base, because the monsters are all Outside. But the truth is exactly the opposite: the fences keep the real world out, and the monsters are inside with us.

  I check the clock again.

  Four minutes.

  I watch the second hand complete its slow circuit, silently pleading with it to hurry. When it finally reaches twelve I get off my bed and kneel down beside it, positioning myself so I’ll be able to see the door if it opens. I reach under the bed and my fingertips find the edges of the loose board without me even having to look.

  I prise it up and set it carefully aside. Inside the little hollow beneath are the things my dad left me and the two objects Nate gave me before he escaped. I leave the mementos and the skeleton key where they are, and lift out the cell phone.

  It seems to vibrate with danger in my hand: I know that if anyone catches me with it, my punishment will make Honey’s look like a gentle slap on the wrist.

  I stand up and examine the phone. It’s a rectangle of black plastic, with a small screen on the front and fifteen oval buttons below. The one at the top left of the grid has a little green shape on it. I take a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart, and press it with my thumb.

  Nothing happens.

  My heart sinks like a stone.

  Maybe the battery is flat. Maybe the phone is broken. Or maybe it never worked and this was all just a cruel practical joke and Nate is somewhere Outside laughing himself silly at the stupid girl who actually believed that he would ever—

  The screen lights up, and I almost drop the phone on the floor.

  I hold it tightly in both hands, and study it. There are rows of dashes on either side of the screen, and the word SEARCHING…is glowing at the top. Then it disappears, and is replaced by AT&T. Next to this new word are five little circles. The one furthest to the left is coloured black. The rest are empty.

  The screen is really bright, much brighter than I was expecting, and I’m suddenly ridiculously terrified that someone will see it through the walls of the building, so I stuff the phone into the pocket of my shorts. It makes the kind of really obvious straight-edged bulge that anyone who sees it will probably ask me about, but there’s nowhere else to put it. I’ll just have to make sure nobody sees it, because I daren’t use the phone here. It’s quiet in my building now, but anyone could come in at any moment, and I might not hear them until it was too late.

  I walk across my room and stop next to the door. I can’t hear anything – or anyone – in the corridor outside, but I still only open it about an inch, and peer out through the narrow crack.

  Nothing. Just the pale wood of the walls and the glowing cross and the five other bedroom doors. I slip out of my room and walk along to the front door. I press my ear to it, hear nothing out of the ordinary, and pull it open. There’s no sign of Amos, or Father John, or any of the Centurions. Just the dark patch of the yard and the distant, shimmering shapes of my Brothers and Sisters going about their business.

  I breathe a sigh of relief, and step outside. It’s barely ten in the morning but the air is baking hot, the kind of heat that makes it feel like your insides are boiling. I think of Honey, sitting on the floor inside the box as its metal sides get hotter and hotter, and push the image away. I need a clear head for what I’m about to do, not one that’s clouded by fury.

  I walk round the yard, skirting the edge of the scorching tarmac, then cut east towards the maintenance sheds. It’s not just a matter of finding somewhere inside The Base where I can’t be listened to – I could stand at any corner of the fence and nobody would be able to hear a word I said. But if I did that, the likelihood of being seen standing on my own at the farthest corner of The Base with something pressed against my ear would be dangerously high. I might just as well walk into the Big House and use the cell phone in the middle of the living room.

  What I need is somewhere remote enough that I can’t be overheard and sheltered enough that I can’t be seen. The sheds, where I stopped Luke forcing Honey to do something horrible and where he did do something horrible to Jacob Reynolds, are the best solution I can think of.

  The working morning is underway, so the tools and equipment that my Brothers and Sisters need for their chores should already have been taken out by now. They’ll be returned when the Chapel bell rings for lunch, but that’s at least two hours away, and that’s if it isn’t cancelled – meals are usually the first things to go when Father John is unhappy with us, and the look on his face as Honey was carried away was far beyond angry. Somebody might realize they need a tool they hadn’t anticipated and come and get it, and there’s a chance that one of the Centurions might notice I’m not where I’m supposed to be and come looking for me, but it’s pretty unlikely, and there’s really nothing I can do about it.

  It’s quiet when I reach the row of sheds
and shelters but I still do a quick zigzag through them, making sure they actually are as empty as they seem. Scythes and forks and spades hang from rows of hooks above sacks of seed and fertilizer and weed killer and insect repellent. The tractor, a rusting hunk of green metal that always leaves a thick cloud of black smoke in its wake, is parked inside the biggest shelter, a small puddle of oil spreading beneath it.

  I don’t see anything. I don’t hear anything.

  There’s nobody around.

  I check a second time, just to make absolutely sure, then stand in the warm shade on the far side of the largest shed, where nobody will be able to see me without me hearing them coming, and take the phone out of my pocket. For a long moment I just hold it in my hand, because I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen; it feels like I’m about to enter the unknown. Nate told me there was only one number in the phone’s memory, but he didn’t tell me whose number it was. I have to assume it’s somebody who can help me, given his instructions about when to use it, but I don’t even know that for certain. Then something else occurs to me: it’s been the best part of a decade since I spoke to anyone outside The Lord’s Legion, since the First Proclamation banned everyone but Amos from going into Town.

  The best part of a decade spent with the same people. The best part of a decade shut away behind a fence.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and hold down the button with the number one on it. There’s a deafeningly loud beep – my eyes spring open and I dart my head around the corner of the shed, because I’m half expecting to see a Centurion sprinting across the desert towards me, ready to smash the phone on the ground and lock me in a box for the rest of my life.

  But there’s nothing. The Base is still and quiet.

  The word DIALLING appears on the screen, above a series of numbers. Then DIALLING changes to CONNECTED and I hear a tinny voice emerge from the phone’s speaker.

  “Layton County Sheriff’s Department.”