The Rapture

by Claire McGlasson

  But he is wrong. It wasn’t my fault.

  ‘Miss Barltrop, when was the last time you ate anything?’ he says. ‘Have you managed to get any sleep?’ I don’t know the answers to his questions, but he keeps asking them anyway. ‘If you would allow me to give you some medicine,’ he says. ‘To calm your nerves …’

  He takes a sachet of powder from his bag and dissolves it in a glass of water. It is the one I put to Ellen’s dead mouth. But I don’t tell him that. It tastes bitter when I drink.

  ‘That will help you to get some rest,’ he says. He is on one side of me, and suddenly Grace is on the other. They are helping me to my feet.

  ‘I will write my recommendations,’ he says to her.

  ‘Thank you, doctor,’ she says. ‘You’ll send it to the address I gave you? And as we agreed – no mention of this to Mrs Barltrop or Mrs Goodwin.’

  I’m on the landing. Then the stairs. Grace is holding my arm. I am being held. The man is gone now and it is just us. Together. We’re in the garden. On the lawn. There’s the seat where you and I sat, Grace. When you first came to me.

  She says, ‘I remember.’

  She says, ‘We don’t have much longer, before the truth comes out. I have found out, Dilys. I have found out what’s been going on.’

  She says, ‘I need you to understand.’

  But I don’t. I don’t understand what she is saying or how I got to be here on the edge of my bed. She is kneeling down and taking off my shoes. She is talking about Emily and a letter, and Adrian. And I want her to slow down and tell me again because I can’t make sense of it.

  She says, ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you.’

  But told me what? I am under the covers and my clothes are gone. I am wearing a nightdress. She is stroking my hair.

  She says, ‘I have hidden it in your Bible, Dilys. Read it when you wake up.’

  She says it’s not too late.

  The Judgement

  I see him at the window. Staring in. Those eyes of black glass that never blink. Sometimes he wakes me with a tap of his beak on the pane, because Sir Jack wants me to know he is watching; he wants me to see him shake his feathers and take flight.

  He is going to find Emily, and report back.

  *

  No one has been to see me, not even Grace. I saw her walking with Emily across the lawn, through the wet leaves that have fallen from Yggdrasil. I knocked on my window but they didn’t look up.

  No one comes when I shout through my bedroom door either. It is locked, just like it is in my dreams. I don’t think they have bricked me in, not yet, I can still see through the keyhole, but perhaps that is next. I have to get out before that happens. I’m not suited to a life of contemplation. There is too much I don’t want to think about.

  My only escape now is sleep, but it won’t take me, won’t snatch me away. My body starts to float but my head won’t follow, it is tethered to the bed. Dreams come while I am still awake, delights and horrors unfolding here in my room, so even then I can’t leave these four walls. I am trapped between wakefulness and slumber.

  I can hear a dream approaching. Footsteps along the landing. The sound of a key in the door. Perhaps this time my imagination will take me away. Take me somewhere else.

  Perhaps Ellen will come and find me.

  ‘Dilys, it is time to get up and get dressed. This has gone on long enough.’

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘You need to come to chapel.’ Octavia is opening my wardrobe and taking out clothes. ‘Put these on.’ But I can’t move. I’ve forgotten how. My door is open but I don’t think I can leave this room.

  ‘Where’s Ellen?’ I ask, but Octavia says nothing. She lays a dress out at the foot of my bed. It is taupe or camel, I can’t remember which.

  ‘Come on, Dilys. You need to get up.’

  ‘Has she woken yet?’

  She turns away and opens the drawers where I keep my stockings. ‘Dilys, Ellen has gone to be with the Lord. We buried her last week.’ She says it as if I should know, as if I have just forgotten, as if it is a minor detail. And suddenly I remember. I was lying beside her, trying to keep her warm. She was as cold and hard as stone. And then a man came. Ellen’s dead, whatever you may have been told, she won’t be coming back.

  ‘Last week?’ I say. ‘But …’

  It doesn’t make sense. How long have I been in here for?

  ‘I should have been there for her funeral.’

  ‘Don’t get agitated,’ Octavia says. ‘You have had a fever. You were quite delirious. I think you must have caught a chill in all that rain in London. But you must get better. I need you to. It reaches a point where you have to question whether you are being … rather self-indulgent.’

  ‘So Ellen didn’t … she wasn’t resurrected?’

  You were wrong, Octavia, that is what I want to say. You were wrong.

  ‘Dilys, please,’ she says, pulling back my covers. ‘We need to get to chapel. The Divine Mother has insisted that all resident members must be present.’

  ‘You mean Emily has insisted?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ She raises her hand so suddenly that for a moment I think she means to strike me, but she brings the palm up to her own forehead. ‘Only the Lord knows what I would have done without her to guide me this past week, while you have been up here sleeping. It’s all been too much …’ Her voice snags on the sharp edge of an emotion, lying just beneath the surface. ‘Emily is the only one who understands my torment, who understands what needs to be done.’

  ‘I’m not coming to chapel,’ I say and the thrill of rebellion runs through me.

  ‘You will come.’ She grabs my arm and pulls me up, jerking my body out of bed before my mind has the chance to follow. I need to lie down again. I start to slump back but she won’t let me. She holds onto me, her grip pinning my arms down to my sides, digging her fingers into my flesh. ‘I have to obey the Lord in everything – though I suffer for it,’ she shouts. ‘I have to follow his will. And you will follow mine. Stand there.’

  Then all I see is white linen. My arms are up and my nightdress is being lifted, exposing my body.

  Grace, I whisper. We mustn’t. But this time I don’t mean it.

  I feel the tug of my hair as she brings it over my head. Impatient. Rough. A few strands must have caught in one of the buttons on the collar. And I’m tangled up in the fabric.

  Yes, Grace, I trust you. Yes, Grace, I will leave.

  But when the nightdress is gone it isn’t Grace I see, it is Octavia. And she can see my body. All of it. A body she hasn’t seen since I was a child, now transformed by curves and hair. Too fluid, too fleshy: unwieldy and greedy and vague. She tries to look away but I see the disgust on her face, and the jealousy. She is looking at the figure she once had.

  ‘I didn’t realise …’ she says, her voice suddenly softer. ‘You have got so thin, Dilys.’

  I grab the blouse and cover myself, cover my shame. Octavia looks away and turns to face the corner of the room and I slip on the underwear she has laid out, and the dress.

  Sitting down I slide the stockings on my feet, up my legs. Where is Grace? I remember walking with her across the lawn. She was trying to tell me something. I’ll have to find a way to ask her. Perhaps I’ll get a chance in chapel. She will tell me what has been happening. How long I have been lost in here.

  ‘Now, do your hair,’ Octavia says, turning back to me. ‘I’ll return in five minutes to take you down. Five minutes, Dilys.’

  I look up but she is already walking out of the door.

  ‘Octavia, I dreamt I was locked in. That I couldn’t get out.’

  She doesn’t stop, or look back. ‘We were keeping you safe,’ she says. ‘You have been sleepwalking again. You could have fallen on the stairs.’

  She closes the door behind her. And I hear the key turning in the lock.

  *

  It is standing room only. It looks as though every one of the resident members has acce
pted the call. But there is no sign of Grace in the chapel. Not yet. I’d be able to see her auburn hair, but all I see are smudges of brown and grey, indistinct ladies of indeterminate age.

  I’ll stay here in the back corner, close to the side wall, so I have something solid to lean against. There are too many people crammed in, too much opportunity for accidental contact: the knocking of an elbow or the brush of a hand. I don’t want anyone to touch me, or speak to me. I don’t want anyone to see me either, but perhaps they can’t – voices are distant, faces are blurred. Perhaps I am not really here: trapped between wakefulness and slumber.

  The murmur of voices dies down and Octavia and Emily stand at the altar.

  ‘Panaceans, thank you for coming, there is much news to share with you this evening,’ Emily says. ‘Before we begin I should like us to remember Ellen Oliver, who is continuing her devoted work for the society, in the realms of Heaven.’

  ‘As you all know,’ says Octavia, ‘we had hoped that she would be resurrected, we prayed for the Lord to perform a miracle …’ Her voice sounds thin and uncertain. ‘But we must all understand that our prayers were selfish. We asked the Lord to let her return to us because that is what we wanted.’ She looks to Emily who immediately steps forward to speak.

  ‘What is important is what God wants,’ she says. ‘He spoke through the Divine Mother to confirm that Ellen has been called ahead to Heaven and when Christ returns to Earth she will be by His side.’

  The silence in the chapel is absolute. No one shuffles in their seats; no one scratches their hair or picks their fingernails; no one draws attention to themselves at all. Octavia might take it as a sign that they have something to say.

  ‘When Ellen returns she will be of radiant body,’ she says, addressing the question we dare not ask. ‘Now she has passed into the realm of Heaven she has no need of flesh and blood.’ The air is thick with unspoken doubt, like the heady smoke of incense.

  Emily steps forward again. ‘And in releasing her from her mortal body, the Lord is making a new covenant with us, another promise that we are His chosen people.’ She raises her arms as though she is standing on a soapbox, or at the foot of Mount Sinai. ‘Firstly – He took Ellen on the very night that some of us went to witness Mr Price’s blasphemy. Though men refuse to see the Truth, the Lord knows that we keep faith, He knows that we will see the real box opened …’ She pauses and raises her eyes to Heaven. ‘Secondly – He took her on the eighth of the month, after eight weeks of illness, which surely points to the name Octavia. And thirdly …’ this time she brings her hand to her chest, ‘on the very night she left us, a picture of a caged bird at Mrs Whittington’s fell off the wall. A clear sign that dear Ellen has been freed from this world of sin.’

  ‘It should be a comfort to us all,’ Octavia says. ‘Blessed Ellen! She is the first of us to look upon the face of Christ. I imagine she will be telling Him all about us as we speak.’ She smiles, her upturned lips twitching with the threat of tears. ‘We thank God for Ellen’s life of integrity and uprightness which has been equal to that of Job,’ she says. ‘We recognise her to be a link between us and the Incorruptible Fold. And we bid her adieu, until we see her again.’

  There’s a stifled sob from somewhere at the back of the chapel and a number of women bow their heads in silent prayer.

  ‘In the meantime,’ Octavia says, ‘we shall keep everything ready for her return. Ellen’s house shall be sealed up, so that when she comes back to us she’ll find everything just as she left it: all her clothes in her wardrobe, her favourite chair still sitting by the fire. She’ll feel like she has never been away.’

  ‘Her servant Betty will make weekly visits to Ellen’s house to keep everything clean,’ Emily says, ‘but day-to-day she will be looking after Octavia and those of us who live at Number 12.’ Emily’s eyes scan the faces of the congregation, then stop abruptly when they find mine. ‘She is moving back in with us.’ She gives me a smile, but I don’t know what it means. Betty can’t come to live with us, there’s no room. Grace lives with us now.

  Where is Grace?

  I look around the chapel again but I can’t see her. Why isn’t she here? All resident members have been called to the meeting tonight. I want to shout her name until the congregation parts and I see her standing among them. But she isn’t here. Memories come back to me of her arm in mine; we walked across the lawn, she was trying to tell me something, but what did she say?

  ‘The Lord has made a new covenant and we keep our side of the accord,’ Octavia says. ‘The time has come to cleanse the Garden of all evil, to cleanse ourselves of the spirits that lead us to sin. Day after day I am forced to sit and listen to your confessions – your jealousies and petty quarrels. There are those of you too prone to take offence; those too needy for my attention; those who like to sew the seed of discord. Well, now it stops. I can live like this no more!’ Octavia steadies herself on Emily’s arm and nods for her to continue.

  ‘We shall begin the Casting of Controls,’ says Emily. ‘For this act, members shall be required to hand in to me a list of their inhibitions, peculiarities, annoyances and temptations. They shall then be called before Octavia and the Divine Mother who will perform a banishment of the spirits that control them. Those who refuse to cast out the demons will be cast out themselves. Indeed, I must inform you all that, for that very reason, Grace Hardwick, who came to us to help with domestic chores, is no longer a member of our society. She has moved on. I hope you will all join me in praying that she finds her way back to the righteous path.’ She looks at me again. ‘Though I fear she may have strayed too far.’

  Gone. Grace is gone.

  She can’t be. She wouldn’t leave me.

  But what if she has?

  What if she’s gone and it is too late for me? She may have strayed too far. Did Emily find out what she was planning, did she find out about us? I need to find her. I need to find Grace and ask her what is happening. I try to move towards the door but there is no room, no one is moving to let me through. I have to get out. I can’t breathe. I push my way through the bodies in front of me and fight my way to the door.

  ‘All shall be called to confess their secrets,’ Octavia says. ‘When she ate of the tree, Eve knew shame and hid herself from the presence of the Lord. But there will be no hiding in the Garden any more.’

  The Betrayal

  Her door is closed. I knock, hoping Grace will answer, hoping it was all a lie. But when I push it open there is no one inside. Just an empty bed and stripped mattress. There is nothing left of her: the shelves are cleared, even the scent of her has fled, no trace of her on the pillow or the blanket that has been neatly folded on the bed. I lie down on it, in the spot where she lay every night. So many times I thought about climbing in beside her. But now it is just me. She is gone.

  I could step out of the front door and start walking, but in which direction would I head? I have nowhere to go, no idea where she is.

  ‘I’m afraid she left no message for you,’ Emily says. I look up to see her watching me from the doorway. ‘It must be quite a shock. I know how close you two were. She told me all about it before she left.’ She sits down beside me on the bed, making herself comfortable. She is not going to rush this opportunity to toy with me. ‘Aren’t you going to ask what happened?’ she says.

  I’m not. I won’t give her the satisfaction. Though every part of me is desperate to.

  ‘I discovered that she wasn’t honest in her commitment to God,’ she says. ‘She had started to question things, she thought she knew better. And it came to my attention that she had gone behind Octavia’s back. She was conspiring, undermining Her.’

  ‘What? How?’ I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Oh Dilys, your confusion is wearing a little thin. You are not as fragile as you pretend to be. I have seen you two whispering together, sneaking off into corners, into the clock tower …’ She raises her eyebrow and laughs.

  I can feel the panic rising from m
y stomach, into my chest, up into my throat. The thought of what she might know. What she might have told Octavia.

  ‘Where is Grace?’ I say.

  ‘She has moved on, Dilys. We made sure she will be quite comfortable.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Octavia and I decided it was best to keep that information confidential. There is no need for anyone within the society to have anything more to do with her.’

  ‘But you’ll be going to visit her like you did with Edgar?’

  ‘No, no. That was a special treat reserved for him. I wanted to make sure he was going to leave for good. We won’t have any problems with Grace: she was only too happy to go. The poor thing found your feelings for her rather … too much.’ She is laughing at me now, disguising her scorn for me as pity. ‘From what she told me she had to fight you off. I saw the mark on her cheek. That’s right, isn’t it, Dilys? You hit her when you were wandering around in your nightclothes?’

  ‘I was sleepwalking.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you were doing?’ she says. ‘I watched you from the top of the stairs. She took you back to bed …’

  Oh God. What does she know?

  ‘I can’t help blaming myself,’ she says. ‘I encouraged Octavia to let Grace join. I thought it would be a good idea to have someone who could look after you … keep an eye on you. I never imagined you’d end up with your eye on her. Still,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t have known about Edgar’s break-in at Castleside if it wasn’t for Grace. And she told me a great many things about you, Dilys. I feel I know you much better than I did before.’

  This isn’t true. None of it is true. Emily is twisting everything.

  ‘Grace wouldn’t do that.’

  I don’t believe it.

  I won’t.

  I have faith in her.

  And faith can be enough. Sometimes it has to be.