The Sunlight Pilgrims

by Jenni Fagan

  Her long neck is soft and brown, her eyes dark and long-lashed. She is unconcerned, grazing on a bit of grass, then turning to saunter up the slope. Her white tail flicks over a boulder and he exhales. When he looks back there are wide-open miles, miles and miles as far as the eye can see—light; movement; fields; farms; motorways; industrial sites with warehouse shops made by metal sheets; what looks like a quarry or a city dump; dots in the distance that are cows and sheep; clusters of rooftops where villages hunker down; and his caravan is a wee speck and he has this sensation of speed like he is standing at the top of the world so he can feel it rotate, in a way he would never experience below sea level.

  He wants them to see this.

  Vivienne.

  Gunn.

  It’s a stupid want and, aside from that, his mind is always half-tilted toward a woman who polishes the moon. He wants to kiss her. That’s a stupid thought as well but it is more real than the detritus of black matter that grief is hauling up in copper buckets. At some point there must, rightly, be a full stop. He scans the view, his heart beginning to slow down. He’ll buy binoculars so he can come back and pick out every detail in the landscape. He walks carefully back down and the light drops as he follows the path, seeing his own footprints in the mud and retracing them. Then there is the farm, a spire of smoke curls out of the chimney. Birds flutter up from the woods and soar out across the fields.

  Stella unclips the metal door, it thuds off the doorstopper as she kicks frost off her boots. Up on the mountain white clouds glide over the peaks, so the top of the mountain is hidden. Constance drops her coat onto the armchair then stops, rotates, pulls the throw off a big box sitting just behind their sofa. She lifts the box up and places it on the table, opens the card. If Stella does not breathe until her mum speaks, then everything will be okay. Constance undoes the ribbon on the box. She takes the lid off and places it down and lifts out a perfect wolf head still attached to its loose pelt. It is immaculate. Her mother hesitates and then slips the thing over her head. The eye sockets fit right over her own and the nose juts out. She is a white wolf. Her ears stick up. The wolf looks at herself in the mirror and there is a faint hint of a smile underneath her long nose. Stella squints at the note on the box again. To My Darling Constance—I Am Sorry, forgive me x.

  —Where did Alistair get a wolf from?

  —I’m guessing one died at the sanctuary.

  —That’s your Bonfire Night costume sorted, then, Stella says.

  The two of them stand side by side, looking in the mirror. Whatever anger was in her mum is already gone. It is always like that. Constance does clean fury and then it goes and she never stays mad for long, doesn’t mince around the house in a toxic mist of perpetual resentment like Lewis’s mum always seemed to do. The two of them look at each other and smile.

  —Mum, can I invite a friend for dinner before the bonfire?

  —Which friend?

  —A new one, Stella exhales.

  —Informative.

  —The Sisters are having a winter-prep meeting at the village hall, are we going?

  —Yup, you better go and get ready, Stella, or we’re going to be late!

  The temperature gauge on the wall says minus nine—it is getting colder almost every hour right now, winter is going to come and they will be snowed in like Eskimos until spring.

  —

  The ambulance creaks its way down a dark road. Windscreen wipers don’t help much against a steady snowfall. They drive slowly. The world is a cleaner, colder, quieter place than it was a week ago. People walk along cobbled roads heading for the village hall. Constance turns the ambulance into the car park. Snow is piled on the verges already. Stella jumps down from the ambulance and it barely makes a sound. Her boots are quiet on the dustier snow on top. Lewis is going in ahead with his brother. The boys who were at Ellie’s Hole won’t be here, they’ll be over at Fort Hope town hall; the whole of the Clachan Fells region will be in damp rooms holding meetings like this one. Constance holds out her hand and they walk in together.

  —There’s a lot of extra nuns here? Stella whispers.

  —The Sisters of Beathnoch—they are here as volunteers for the 2020 Winter Appeal, they want to help vulnerable people in remote communities, Constance says.

  The local minister is up the back talking to the nuns. Stella’s entire old class (eight people) are chatting together. She sits on the floor in front of her mum. Lewis is in the front row. He glances back and pretends not to see. What is it he can’t see? Or what is it he can’t deal with seeing? She isn’t asking him even to speak to her. His mum barely even says hello to her now. Stella has her black hair in braids, it is getting longer. She reapplies some lip gloss and is glad she wore two pairs of socks. She can feel Constance sitting behind her and it makes her feel safe. Everyone settles and the chatter begins to peter out as the nuns file onto the stage with the local doctor and a few teachers; the minister steps up last. A weary man in a lumberjack shirt pulls his hat off and looks around. The minister stands up and raises his hand to get silence.

  —Thank you all for coming along this evening to discuss forward planning regarding subzero conditions in the Clachan Fells region. As you all know, for once we are not alone in having an extreme winter, but this one is going to be more severe than most and so we’re already putting plans together to ensure we can all get through it safely. Over by the Exit doors there are lists of jobs that we need volunteers for. The council will salt the roads but not all of them—we need to raise money to grit the smaller roads, where possible. We need extra volunteers to check on the elderly and infirm and we are looking for a roster of people who will go out and clear pathways and driveways for those who cannot do so for themselves. The third pad is for anybody who needs help of any kind this winter. Don’t try to do this on your own, especially if you are elderly, or if you live alone or have any ailments. We aim to keep the church open all winter and this village hall is going to offer respite, and even somewhere to stay or get a hot meal or warm clothes or a bath, for anyone who needs it. If you need to see me afterward, then please just say hello! I would like to introduce you all to the Sisters of Beathnoch, who are offering their time in regions all across the Highlands of Scotland this winter. There will also be basic medical aid on offer. As you know, there is only one wonderful doctor here in the village, so we want to make sure there’s a backup, should we need it!

  The minister sits back down at the end of the row of nuns.

  —We all need to focus on getting this community through the winter, the head nun says.

  —If any of us make it through this winter! They’re predicting ten feet of snowfall next month. They’ve said it will go down to minus forty or even colder; there is a bloody iceberg heading to our shores from Norway, a young dad says.

  —Youz are all bloody nuts if you think we’ll get through this, a mother agrees.

  —Mercy, mercy.

  This last note is uttered quietly by another nun. The Mother Superior stares over at her until she looks down at her shoes. A teacher stands up.

  —We have all known global warming was occurring. The Arctic is our canary, if you like, it’s going to show the rest of the world what will happen next.

  —The canaries died first, the young mother says.

  —Look, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, for example, is almost completely gone; that block of ice was there for three thousand years and it only started cracking in the year 2000, and here we are only twenty years later, the polar ice cap has shrunk by thirty percent and all that fresh water is flooding the oceans, reducing salinity.

  —So now we all just freeze to death, aye? the dad asks.

  —No, now we make our plans for how to get through it.

  A young man puts his hand up and Stella cannot decide if the nuns are quite cute in their way, with their seriousness and their napkin heads, or if they are in fact completely ridiculous, and the village hall is full of parents and children and old people and teenagers an
d it is so stuffy and damp in here now that her skin prickles and she yawns widely. Lewis is giggling with a girl in the front row and, despite herself, Stella feels a hot spike of jealousy. They are passing a piece of paper to each other and folding it over. Drawing a person, when each one does a different section and passes it on. She can’t remember the name of the game but they used to play it at school sometimes. She thinks it was an exquisite corpse. Stella scans the hall.

  —We don’t have answers long-term but we do have resources! We have drawn up a list of what we think each household needs to get them through winter, including extra water supplies, tinned goods, Mr. McBride. We are telling everyone to stock up in advance: make sure you have what you need in food and water, stock your freezers. Make sure you have a back-up heating supply. We have ordered a generator for the community hall and anyone who cannot afford food or heating, especially the elderly and vulnerable, must come to the town hall, where we will be offering shelter, food and companionship for those who need it.

  —I’d rather stay at home and die in front of the telly, a young mum mutters.

  —We, the Sisters of Beathnoch, are going to do whatever we can to help people on the ground directly. Rising seas are affecting Louisiana, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, regions of Africa; across Europe this devastation is spreading in all directions. You are not the only community facing these problems, but if we pull together many of us will get through it.

  That last sentence causes a temporary silence. The nuns look steadily ahead.

  Big charts have been placed up around the hall to show exactly what is happening with the weather systems—there are signs for how to keep warm, how to avoid frostbite, how to thaw and treat water from snow, how to dig your way out of a snowdrift. One shows a picture of a man digging a hole around the exhaust at the back of his car, so that even in a drift he can keep the engine running; the next picture shows what happens if he doesn’t dig the hole for the exhaust fumes: him and his little boy asleep on the front seat being poisoned by the fumes. There are pictures of an Arctic family with their furry jackets open, staring into a camera. Stella is fascinated by the smallest child who looks just like her when she was little, except the girl has blond hair rather than black.

  Stella looks over at Lewis’s dad and she hasn’t seen him since he had that affair and got kicked out of their caravan again. He is wearing Doc boots and a thick parka and he looks thinner. She used to like going over there for sleepovers and sitting in his tiny bedroom playing computer games. It’s not like she felt like this about Lewis when she was younger, or maybe only a little bit. Lewis is passing the folded drawing along the line and it is being handed up the rows toward her and that flutter of fear in her, and her skin growing hot already.

  There is a slight quiet, parents nodding to each other.

  —Is Santa okay at the North Pole? a wee girl asks.

  —Santa is just fine, the Mother Superior says.

  Elaine Brown walks past as if she’s going to the toilet and drops a piece of paper in Stella’s lap. She sits up on her knees and she almost doesn’t want to open it. The kids from her class are facing the front, pretending they’re listening. A minute ago they were just bored and picking on each other and pinching each other and hoping the adults would give up and let them all go. She unfolds the piece of paper. The bottom is a pair of sparkly Rocket Dog sneakers that she wore all summer. Then there are her skinny legs with stripy tights. The top bit has her hair in a long bob, flicked out, and bigger lips than she has, and her usual jumper with only a hint of a bump. And when she opens the middle section of paper she drops it to the floor.

  —

  Don’t cry. It would be better to walk out now than to cry in a town hall in front of Lewis and the entire village and everyone from the crofts and farms. Stella scans along the row of nuns’ black shoes and hopes that her mum is not unfolding the piece of paper right now, because she picked it up from the floor. Stella looks along a row of twenty-eight shiny black shoes; above those are black turnups and fitted trousers with a chain hanging from each belt, hanging off that a whistle and a torch and a multitool with knife, scissors, tweezers; the white hats are peaked like napkins and frame each nun across the middle of her forehead.

  —Why don’t you just spell it out: we could all be dead within months, if temperatures hit anything lower than the minus forties by December. We all know it drops another ten degrees here every January, and sometimes again in February.

  Constance folds up the piece of paper. Stella can almost hear the folds and her mother running her finger along it, as if to seal the picture in. For an awful moment she thinks her mother is going to stand up and call them out. Lewis looks back and sees her expression and his face falls. On the fourth row she sees what looks like an old woman in a donkey jacket, but when she turns it is someone’s mum. Constance folds the piece of paper up and her mother’s face is so steely that Stella begins to panic. She looks over to her old classmates and tries not to wish for the gift of telekinesis. The scene in Carrie where the girl sets the whole place on fire sums up exactly how she feels.

  —Trains are still running, and most of the airports haven’t closed. I think we should all fly somewhere warmer. Right now we’re here like sitting ducks and nobody knows how bad it is going to get! a man says.

  There are paper chains laced all across the ceiling in white and red and green and Stella can see the one she made, ready for the winter festival. Constance looks over at her and she can tell her mum is biting her tongue so hard she can probably taste blood.

  —What about Year Six and Sevens: do they still need to do their prep exams for high school?

  A young woman stands up to ask this; she is Tabitha the Fanny’s mum. Tabitha lives with her now and she used to be the best girl football player in the whole year, until she broke her ankle and got into porn. Now she sells soiled panties to men in Tokyo, all the way from her council flat over the Clachan Fells bakery. Everyone says her mum already knows and that Tabitha’s bringing money into the house, so she doesn’t care. Tabitha the Fanny once sold it to a man who wanted her to cover herself in baked beans, and her dad found the towels and she had to say she was doing a project for science.

  —That is Point Four of today’s meeting, thank you.

  A poster on the village-hall wall has a big advert up for performance night: RAISE FUNDS FOR THOSE WITHOUT HOMES! Beside that a sign reads: JESUS IS MY SAVIOR! The hall smells dank and earthy; everyone is looking at the Sisters now.

  Stella flexes her toes in her welly boots and her feet are too warm. What he drew! She knows it was him. He is disgusting. Right then she knows he is more obsessed with her than she is with him. She will not think about Lewis. She is more embarrassed that her mum has seen the picture when she hid all the others. The stupid, stupid thing is that even though Constance is the most independent person, she is always trying to fix the world so it will be okay for Stella, and it is not okay. It really isn’t. Her class doesn’t believe she is a girl. Hardly anybody does anywhere. She has to stop thinking or she will cry. What if the Sisters try to stop Bonfire Night? That would be the last thing to go wrong. They couldn’t. Nobody would let them. Is it un-Christian for children to want to gravitate to fire like moths in the night? All the villagers look worried and that is the worst thing. Before it was just poverty, pestilence, terrorists, pedophiles, drugs, eating disorders, online grooming, meteors skimming a bit too close for comfort. Now every single person in this hall looks like they are terrified they’re all about to become frozen corpses. For the first time since the news broke, Stella gets this stabbing feeling in her heart that must be some new kind of fear.

  —Well, I’m telling ye right now, neither of ma girls will be staying here—we’re going!

  —Going where, Mr. Cranston? Have you seen the global news?

  The Mother Superior sits back.

  The hall falls silent.

  Mr. Cranston is Donna from down the glen’s dad; he sits down. Not one
person says a thing. One of the crosses up on the mountain from last year is for his eldest boy, who had been out on his motorbike with his brother on the back when they took a corner too fast. Stella and her mum drove by last week and all along the verge there were soggy teddy bears, half-burnt candles and wilting flowers. Stella wants to go home suddenly. She wants to go to sleep. A mutter all around the hall; people exchange words and the Sisters wait for them to finish. Stella has been to the cross with her mum even though they didn’t know the boys. Constance carved a flower out of wood and Stella painted it and they left it there. On the way home that day she sat right next to her mum in the ambulance, as close as she could get, so close that she could get that reassuring thing she gets when her mother is there—like not even a nun, not even an Ice Age, not even the whole community could stop her mother, if she was really angry.

  A boy next to Stella picks his nose and wipes it on the floor.

  He always does that.

  He wipes it underneath the chairs in registration as well; he is a disgusting smelly bastard who turns his eyelids inside out. He’ll sit like that until a teacher notices and then he flicks his eyelids back the right way round. He’s not done it to any of the nuns yet. He told Stella he could pop his eye totally out of the socket too, but he can’t. Lewis looks back at Stella again like he is trying to say sorry. She scans the hall. The nuns sit still on the stage like a painting, with eyes moving. The audience is more relaxed, quieter. It is a truce between people and the agents of everlasting peace. Her mother raises her hand.

  —How long has Clachan Fells been without a library service? Is there even one at Fort Hope?

  The Mother Superior looks out over the audience and faces are blank and a few parents shake their heads at Constance’s question. The Mother Superior fixes her habit and, while all the other nuns have small crosses around their necks, she has a huge one on the end of her rosary. She looks up at them again and smiles, and Stella can tell the woman is pissed off about the people shaking their heads when someone mentions books and it makes her like her, despite the penguin outfit and the napkin hat.