The Crossing (6 page)

“Hushai?”

The old man stopped, turning toward her with a sad smile. “Ah, little Sister, you awaken at last.” He stood and crossed to her, placing his papery hand upon her forehead. “I am so sorry for your pain.”

He helped her raise a cup of water to her mouth, and the sweet coolness worked its magic on her throat. A question pressed her lips and before she could contain it, Maryam whispered, “Why did she do that? Have I sinned?”

Hushai shook his head. “Never believe this is your fault,” he replied urgently. “You must be strong, my little one. You must keep your wits.”

“How will I—”

Hushai broke in, holding his finger to his lips. “Quiet now, I hear them come. There is little time, so remember this: The tairiki crab sees best at night, when others' minds are dulled by sleep. Build a shell around yourself for protection like the crab, and use the night's long dark to hunt.”

Maryam now, too, could hear footsteps, but she did not understand his words and tried to speak. “But I—”

“Shhh. Hold this message close inside yourself, but know I'm here.” He could say no more, as the door was thrust open and Mother Michal entered.

“Ah good, I see you are awake.” She smiled as though there was nothing wrong, and held her hand out to Maryam. “Come, I'll take you back now to your room.”

Maryam tried to rise, her head dizzy and her limbs half dead. Mother Michal pulled her upright, seemingly oblivious to Maryam's discomfort. A sharp pain shot through Maryam's abdomen and she bit back a cry. Shame heated her cheeks as she saw the stain of blood upon the bed where she had lain, yet Mother Michal seemed not to mind. “I have asked Rebekah to bring a light supper to your room, then I'm sure you'll want to rest.” She smiled brightly, turning to Hushai. “Change the linen, Hushai, then you may go.”

She led Maryam toward the door, supporting her feeble steps by grasping one arm. Maryam turned back to Hushai. “Thank you,” she said. “I will not forget.”

“Forget what?” Mother Michal questioned, as they entered a long dark corridor.

“Kindness,” Maryam muttered, not daring to meet her eye.

True to Mother Michal's word, Rebekah awaited her back in her room. She had placed a plate with bread, goat's cheese and a
ripe mango on the table next to Maryam's bed. “I wasn't sure how much you'd eat,” she said. “I can always go and fetch you more.”

Maryam shook her head. “Thank you but I couldn't eat.” The walking had disturbed her pain, and all she longed for was to lie back down and escape in sleep.

Mother Michal beckoned Rebekah to the door. “Leave her now. The Lord wishes her to meditate in silence, until she's called upon to serve the Lamb.” She pushed Rebekah out and leaned back in to address Maryam. “You speak to no one now, Sister. Your mind must be emptied and your heart pure.”

Maryam just looked at her, hysterical laughter threatening to erupt. After everything she'd gone through since she left her home—was that really yesterday?—and now she could not even speak? She threw herself down on the bed and reached for the albatross feather she had brought with her to this new home. She held it to her nose and drew in the pungent oily scent of it, closing her eyes and trying to take herself back to the atoll where she had so freely roamed. If only she had wings to fly, like the albatross, she would be back there in her sleeping hut this very night—snuggling in right next to Ruth and releasing her tears. Nothing was as she'd imagined it.

She rose gingerly, relieved that Mother Michal had left her, and laid her meagre pile of belongings in the drawers. She picked up her Holy Book, letting it fall open at a random page, one of the Psalms, and whispered the words, trying to find comfort in them. “
The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble…Send thee help from the sanctuary, and—
”

There was a gentle knock, the door slipped open and Rebekah rushed across the room. She collected Maryam up into her arms, her ripe belly pressing against Maryam's tender frame.

“I cannot stay. But one day I promise, Sister Maryam, we will talk.” She noticed the Holy Book lying open on the bed. “It is good to see you use the Lord's words to comfort you.” She drew back, staring wide-eyed into Maryam's face. “Remember Rule Eight:
As with the Lamb who went so willingly to slaughter, we must sacrifice up our lives in readiness and joy.
” She gave Maryam one final squeeze, then fled the room as quickly as she had entered.

Maryam retreated to the bathroom, using most of the remaining water to wash away all signs of shame. She felt bruised inside, but the thing that hurt most was her heavy and unhappy heart. Whatever she had thought that she would find here, it was not so. Nothing made sense. Nothing was as it should be.

She tried to sleep, to block the dark thoughts from her mind. But the night rolled on over her, and her mind would not still. It was so quiet: no sleeping breath of Ruth. No barking dog nor nagging goat. No constant whisper of the sea.

When she could bear it no longer, sometime in the thick of night, she crept stiffly from her bed. She tracked the long corridors back to the atrium, careful not to be found out. The great space shone in the slivers of moonlight that fell inside, so beautiful and still, at odds with the turmoil inside her heart. Her hand trailing on the smooth silver handrail, she climbed the stairs and slipped outside.

Oh, the sweet sweet smell of the sea rushed down into her lungs and soothed her as it lapped the ship's vast sides with its gentle song. The sky was clear; a million stars looked down on her from Heaven. She needed this; needed to remind herself of the Lord's magnificence and reach. He had a plan for all, mapped out as intricately as the stars that led the ancestors on their great voyage. She had to put aside her pain and fears and
trust that He would reward her service and bring her joy. She would believe in this—
had
to believe in this—otherwise all hope was lost.

She leaned against the railing and closed her eyes, letting the night breeze brush over her. Perhaps Mother Michal was right, that silence now could still her mind. She would use the time for rest and prayer. She had believed—had trusted the Lord would eventually reward her faith. And now that He was testing her, was tempting her to lose that faith, she must stand firm.

“Well, surprise, surprise.” The voice, mocking and low, nearly burst her from her skin. A figure stepped forward through the gloom, smoke issuing from his nose as he cast his tobacco tikareti over the side.

Maryam made to run, but he stepped forward and clamped a cold hand around her arm. “What have we here?”

She looked directly at him then, recognising the hard-eyed boy who'd helped Joseph back to his seat. She tried to shake his hand away, but he only held on tighter.

“Lazarus,” he introduced himself and, as she watched, his tongue emerged and swept a lazy circle round his lips. “Sister Maryam, I presume?”

She dared not answer, mindful of Mother Michal's instruction. But she nodded, ducking her head to escape his stare. He laughed, tugging her so suddenly she stumbled up against his chest. His arm wrapped around her like a sea snake and, although she struggled, he merely smiled and held her tight. His body was hard and unforgiving, and he smelt of smoke. With his other hand he pinched her chin between his forefinger and thumb and raised her head to study her. “Nice,” he purred.

Before she could duck away, he crushed his mouth against
hers—his tongue forcing through her shocked lips and delving deep. She wanted to gag, wanted more than anything to break away. She fought beneath his vice-like grip but he was taller and more strongly built, and backed her against the handrail until she leaned precariously out over the sea.

Then, just as suddenly, he pulled away. She ran at him, slapped him so hard on his smirking face that he reeled back, the sound an explosion in the sleeping night. Something mean crossed his face. Holy Father, what had she done? She ran for it then, just reaching the doorway, relieved that he did not pursue her, when his parting words stabbed through her like a sharpened spear.

“Are you a bleeder or a breeder?”

She stumbled, wounded and confused by this. What, in all Heaven, could he mean?

Sleep eluded her, as Maryam struggled to make sense of Lazarus's words. She was a bleeder, she supposed, in that her Bloods had finally come. But breeder?

She thought of Rebekah, ripe with her third child, and the other pregnant women she had seen. Was this how she was destined to serve? As breeding stock, like the female goats put to the billy to increase their flock? And Mother Elizabeth, was she subject to this, too?

What frightened her was not the thought of bearing a child, although she knew virtually nothing of this. It was the process to conceive the child that scared her so. If only she could speak to Mother Elizabeth now—to tease out some sense from everything that had passed these last two terrible days. It seemed impossible that she had looked upon her journey here as the start of something fine and good. But now, regardless of whether the Lord was testing her or not, she feared the approaching dawn.

When, finally, her brain had tied itself into such tired knots her thoughts lost sense, she drifted into fitful sleep. Strange disjointed dreams chased her down dark corridors and, when Rebekah knocked on her door bearing breakfast, Maryam had to force her way out through the maze to wake.

“Make sure you drink every drop,” Rebekah instructed her, as she laid a tray beside the bed.

Maryam took up the offered cup, recognising the caustic smell of the anga kerea toddy before she even saw it. Anga kerea. What did it mean? The language of her childhood hid
deep beneath the overlay of English words she had since learnt. Then it came to her—
sacrificial
. So why must she drink this yet again? Had she not gone through the sacrificial rites already? She looked up at Rebekah, not daring to speak, but trying to transmit her worry through her eyes.

Rebekah giggled. “I know it tastes horrible, but you get used to it after a while—even start to want it. And as you get more used to it, it will not send you off to sleep, just make the day pass easier.” She stood there, hands on hips, waiting for Maryam to down the drink. “Anyway, it's not as strong today, now that you've been tested.”

“Tested? What do you—”

Rebekah held up her hand, silencing her. “Please, Maryam, do not speak. Mother Michal is close by and if she hears you we will both be punished.”

Maryam bit back her frustration. If she could not even speak to another Blessed Sister, then how was she ever to understand the workings of this strange new place? They seemed so unfair, these so-called tests, and she was terrified that she would fail—that the Lord would see inside her heart to her resistance and send her straight to burn in Hell. She raised the cup to her lips and drank a quarter of the toddy down, trying to hold back the wave of nervous nausea that swept her. Rebekah nodded, encouraging Maryam to drink it all, and she took the rest in one mouthful—holding it unswallowed while Rebekah made to leave.

“I will return shortly,” Rebekah assured her, “to show you where to fetch the water for your bath.” As the light from the corridor caught Rebekah side on, Maryam registered an unusual tinge of yellow in the whites of her eyes.

Alone again, Maryam spat the toddy straight back into the cup. Her mouth felt numb, tingling from the drink's magic. She crossed into the bathroom and poured the residue down the drain hole of the bath. May the Lord forgive her: she could not stand to drink it all. It was bad enough to go from humiliation to humiliation, without also losing the ability to think things through. The mirror reflected her worried face back to her. Dark smudges of sleeplessness framed her eyes and, there, where her eyeballs should be white they, too, were muddied by a yellow hue. Was it just the diffused light, or had something else turned them so?

“Sister Maryam?” Mother Michal called.

Maryam dashed back to her bed, placing the empty cup beside her just as Mother Michal entered the room. “Ah good, I see Rebekah has been here.”

Mother Michal patted Maryam's shoulder, a kindly gesture that almost brought tears swelling in Maryam's eyes. “I have asked Rebekah to show you where to fetch your water and then you can join the others in the kitchen to help prepare our meals.”

Maryam nodded, unsure if she was allowed to respond. It seemed not: Mother Michal checked the cup was empty and reiterated that complete silence now would aid her journey toward the Lord, then left. The toddy made Maryam a little dizzy, despite the small amount she had consumed. She dragged on her clothes, eating the breakfast of fresh fruit and nuts hungrily as she did so. The thought of joining the others in a normal task was reassuring. Maybe the trials they'd put her through were over. Please, she prayed, let this be so.

When Rebekah returned, she led Maryam down through a maze of corridors, reminiscent of her scattered dreams the
night before. There were many more people about today, black-clothed servers rushing silently from job to job. The girls made their way down to the very bowels of the great ship, where huge steel vats, tarnished with age, filled the cool dark space. It was noisy here, as the motors powered by the waste converted the salt water into fresh. Maryam longed to take the controlling server aside and deluge him with questions as to how it worked. But she dared not speak, conscious of the eyes of the Apostles upon her. They seemed to be everywhere, supervising the servers at their tasks.

Once they had delivered the fresh water to her room, Maryam followed Rebekah up to the kitchens, cheered by the rumble of warm chatter that greeted them as they entered. “Come and I'll introduce you,” Rebekah offered, and she started reeling off servers' names so fast that Maryam could not keep up. But what she did register, with each new face, was the same strange yellowing of the eyes.

“And you remember Sarah,” Rebekah now said, pulling a reluctant girl from her place slumped by a sink.

So this washed-out girl
was
Sarah, who had played with her when she was young. She wouldn't meet Maryam's eye, squirming like a bonubonu worm brought to light. Her face was a sickly grey, dry skin patching both her cheeks. And her lips, as pale as driftwood, were split and cracked. Her hair, which Maryam remembered as strong ropy curls, hung limp and unkempt, and her hands trembled as she took Maryam's offered hand and shook it with the limpness of a slaughtered chicken's claw.

Maryam swallowed a gasp, as Sarah's extended arm revealed a weeping wound at the crook of her thin elbow. The surrounding
skin looked bruised and fragile. Just for a second Sarah's eyes met Maryam's then slipped away. But the pain in them, the deep resigned misery, struck Maryam. Sarah was gravely ill, she was convinced of it.

But she had no time to dwell on this, as Rebekah led her on to meet Miriam and Abigail, both of whom she vaguely remembered as older Sisters from her youth. Pregnant bellies bursting from their uniforms, the young women greeted Maryam kindly, although there was a disconnected vagueness to their speech. Was this the result of the toddy, Maryam wondered? Server after server fitted this description, as she met each of the twenty or so in the room. And yet they appeared quite happy, apart from Sarah, and nattered comfortably together as they worked. She longed to join them, to enter into their cheerful conversations, but one of the Apostles—a large woman in her later years—watched from her vantage point, an armchair placed strategically in the middle of the vast kitchen space.

“Who have we here?” this woman asked, as Rebekah led Maryam forward.

“Mother Jael, this is Sister Maryam.”

Mother Jael looked Maryam over, her head to one side. “Ah, yes. Show her where the dishes are washed and stacked,” she told Rebekah. “She looks as though she's careful. Is that right, girl?”

Maryam nodded, skimming her eyes over Mother Jael's wide soft face. She had never seen anyone quite so fat before, skin dragged down by the weight of undulating rolls that wobbled, independent of her, as she moved. So much food, to grow this big. The Lord surely must provide richly for His own.

The work was tedious yet soothing and Maryam found herself relaxing for the first time since her Crossing. To have
something practical to do, to focus on, helped subdue the anxiety that still swirled inside her head. Meanwhile, all about her, the servers worked in calm harmony, some breaking into song as they performed their tasks.

When the stack of breakfast dishes was finally cleared, the male server Brother Mark, who Maryam had met when first she Crossed, approached. “Mother Jael suggests you help us with the toddy,” he announced, smiling. “Please come with me.”

She followed him to the far end of the kitchen, where several other servers ground huge piles of nuts and herbs into fine yellow paste. “This forms the basis of our toddy,” Brother Mark said. “We mix it with the sap of the coconut blossom spike for sweetness and leave it to ferment overnight.” He handed her a large rounded stone. “Use this to grind the paste.”

He set her up next to the youngest of the servers there, a boy in his early teens who shot her a shy smile. “This is Brother Ethan. He will show you the right mix of herbs.”

Maryam turned to the boy, whose face flushed red at her attention. His hands, like those of the other servers around him, were stained yellow by the paste. He cleared his throat. “These,” he said finally, showing the same vague sense of disconnection as Miriam and Abigail, “are sida leaves and flowers. We use about twenty of the leaves for each brew and four of the flowers.” He showed her the small serrated leaves—soft to the touch—and the glossy yellow flowers, then picked up a handful of kamani nuts. “The oil from these is very strong—we only use two each time.” Finally he pointed out the kurap fruit, and the leaves of nambugura and te ren shrubs. “Once you've ground each of these separately, mix them together into the final paste.”

He showed her how to use the stone, placing his palm
across its back and rocking it in a steady motion over the nuts upon the bench. It looked so easy, yet when she tried the nuts shot off across the room, flying into dark corners she had to scrabble to retrieve them from. Around her, the stifled laughter of the servers made her blush. She tried again, more determined, watching how the others placed the whole weight of their bodies above the stone. She stood on tiptoe, trying to press down through her shoulders and arms, not just her hand. Slowly the movement came to her. Soon she was consumed by the tangy scent the paste gave off and her hands, too, were stained with yellow. As she worked, she followed the other activity around her, amazed by the quantity of toddy being made. There were many, many large pots of it—each one heated over the fireless stove until it boiled, then strained through cloth to cool and ferment in huge clay pots. So this was how the sacrificial toddy was made. It all made sense: the yellow staining on the hands; the yellow eyes. No one could make contact with this brew and be left unmarked.

What amazed her more than anything was how frequently the servers dipped into the fermenting brew and tasted it, just to check the mix was right. They obviously liked the stuff, their smiles and laughter increasing as the morning hurried on.

By the time Mother Jael called a halt for lunch, Maryam's arms ached from the effort. She scrubbed her hands to clear the stain, following Rebekah as the servers carried platters of the prepared food into the near-full dining room.

Once the Apostles and their families had been served, the others were allowed to sit. The babble stopped, as Father Joshua rose from his chair at the very centre of the room and raised his hand.

“Let us thank the Lord for our food.” He led the blessing, his eyes sweeping the faces of those gathered while he recited the words. As his gaze fell on Maryam it stopped, boring into her with such intensity she felt her brain would burst. She tried to hold his stare but failed. Why did this man frighten her so? Was he not the Lamb's special chosen one? Mother Lilith sat next to him, and the way she leaned up close to him made Maryam wonder if she was his wife. Hushai had called her Holy Mother, she recalled.

She searched the room for Joseph. Lazarus was there, bending over a young server with a condescending smile that made the poor girl shrink and blush. And Joseph's mother, Deborah, pale and silent at the table where Father Joshua now sat. But there was no sign of the boy himself, and disappointment bruised Maryam's heart. He had shown such kindness at her plight.

Now the room surrendered to the clattering of cutlery on plates and relaxed talk, and Maryam quickly dug into her own food. The green plantain curry tasted wonderful, even better than the milder version Mother Evodia was so famous for back home. There was something about the gentle pervading heat of the food, together with the ordinary happy human noises of the room, which swept away Maryam's unease. This was how she'd dreamed it, full-bellied and happy in a room of such dimension and exotic decoration that she knew she'd Crossed over to the Lord's sacred house. Perhaps all that seemed to have befallen her since her arrival was a strange delusion caused by the drink? Maybe she had dreamed it all.

Even her imposed silence bothered her less, allowing her to meld into the group without the need for constant questioning or awkwardness. Mother Michal must have known this, and
Maryam was grateful now for the older woman's common sense. There was so much she did not yet fully understand—she had to trust that the Apostles knew what was best. After all, had they not picked her out as special when she was a tiny child? Why bother to raise her on the atoll, protected from the ravages of the Tribulation that still lingered on Onewēre, if they did not have her best interests at heart?