Being Magdalene

In this riveting sequel to the bestselling novels
I am not Esther
and
I am Rebecca,
Fleur Beale revisits the Pilgrim family and its closed religious community, the Children of the Faith
.

Four years have passed since Rebecca ran away. The community simmers with tension and rumours of an approaching split; and life has become terrifying for Rebecca’s remaining siblings as Elder Stephen seizes any chance to take revenge. Twelve-year-old Magdalene lives in fear that her strong-willed little sister, Zillah, will be his next target.

The girls have run out of people who can protect them. To Zillah their path is clear but Magdalene is torn. How can she cause more hurt and shame for her parents? But, equally, how can she face a life with no freedom to be herself?

And another question scares her most of all. Without the elders’ suffocating rules that tell her how to live, who would Magdalene be?

Caleb
father

Naomi
mother

Daniel*
eldest son, aged 24

Miriam*
eldest daughter, aged 22

Esther*
aged 22 (real name Kirby Greenland). Caleb’s niece who was brought into the family. She had not been raised in the Faith and was expelled at the same time as Daniel

Rebecca*
and
Rachel
twins, aged 20

Abraham
aged 18

Luke
aged 15

Magdalene
aged 12

Zillah
aged 7

*expelled from the Children of the Faith

Saul
husband of Rachel. They are the parents of
Hope
, aged 3, and Rachel is pregnant with their second child

Jim
and
Nina
brother and sister-in-law of Caleb. Carers of his expelled children

Ellen Greenland
sister of Caleb and Jim. Mother of Esther/Kirby

Carmel

Neriah

Jemimah

Sharon

Joy

Nathan

Elder Stephen
Leader

Elder Hosea

Elder Asa

Brother Ebenezer
and
Sister Priscilla
parents of Talitha

Brother Jedidiah
and
Sister Elizabeth
parents of
Neriah

Brother Joseph
drives the school bus

Sister Leah
school supervisor

Sister Anna
school supervisor

Sister Judith

Sister Beulah

ACROSS THE ROOM, MY
little sister stayed under her covers, though I knew she’d heard the alarm clock.

‘It’s Friday, Zillah,’ I said, sitting up. ‘Remember? There’s only one more week of school after this.’

The blankets moved, but her head didn’t appear. ‘Don’t care. Not going.’

She’d never stayed hidden like this before. Usually, she’d get ready after I begged, pleaded and cajoled. Today, I could tell it wasn’t going to work.

Zillah was so little — still a few months away from turning eight. She was smart but had no real understanding of what it would be like if she refused to go to school. What could I do? She knew how dangerous it was to rebel against the Rule, to challenge the authority of the Elders. I’d told her every single morning since she’d started school.

I closed my eyes, wondering if what I was thinking about telling her was wise, but I had no other ideas. I’d have to risk it. I pressed my hands into my body, trying to stop the familiar biting pain in my stomach,
then picked up the neatly folded pile of clothes and put them on her bed. ‘Zillah — have you noticed anything different at school?’

Her head emerged from the blankets but she gave me a sharp look. She was well used to my attempts to distract her mind from the day ahead. ‘No.’ She stayed where she was.

‘Sister Anna hasn’t been acting any different lately?’ My sister was lucky to have Sister Anna for her supervisor. I had Sister Leah, who took every opportunity to discipline us.

‘Is your hand still sore?’ Zillah asked. ‘Somebody should break Sister Leah’s ruler. Sister Anna’s not like that. You know she’s not.’

I unplaited my braid and started brushing my hair. ‘But have you noticed anything different? Not just school, either. There’s Mother — always preaching at us. The Circle of Fellowship this week was weird.’

Going to Circle was another thing we hated. Every Wednesday afternoon we had to go with Mother, sit still and listen while each of the six women explained a passage from the Bible.

‘It was dumb,’ she said. ‘Same as always. Dumb and boring.’

I sat on the edge of my bed to put on my black socks and lace-up shoes, too hot for the Nelson summer like all our clothes were. But the Rule said girls must be modest and seemly in their dress.

I didn’t respond to my sister until my shoes were tied and the buttons on my long-sleeved blouse fastened. ‘You didn’t notice some of it because you
always look at the floor.’ With her bottom lip stuck out and rebellion in every bit of her body.

‘Tell me then.’ She was sitting up now, but still making no move to get dressed.

‘Think about it — Sister Beulah kept hinting that she knew something important. Sister Mercy wouldn’t look at any of the others. Mother came out with scripture every time there was a half-second of silence.’

She glared at me. ‘Are you telling the truth?’

I stamped my foot at her. ‘Of course I am. I don’t lie to you. You know that, Zillah.’

All the tension left her. ‘I am sorry, my sister. Don’t be cross. It’s just — I really,
really
hate school.’

I could never stay angry with her for long. ‘I know. Me too. But I’d hate Elder Stephen getting the chance to punish you. And he will if you don’t go.’

She heaved a sigh and reached for her clothes.

‘Keep your eyes open — see if anything’s different. People are uneasy.’ I knew it would help her to have something real to do. ‘But don’t tell anybody.’

That earned me a look of scorn. ‘Who would I tell? Sharon believes the stupid Rule. Joy would be terrified and she’d run away. Nathan asks questions but I can’t talk to him.’

Girls weren’t permitted to speak to boys unless an adult supervised them.

‘Make your bed, but hurry. We’re already late.’

Minutes later, we walked into the kitchen. Mother looked up, the frown she wore all the time these days wrinkling her forehead. Her eyes flicked over us, looking for faults, looking for sin, for transgression, for
an infringement of the Rule that controlled our lives.

There was nothing. We were her seemly, modest daughters.

‘Good morning, Mother.’

I started making the porridge and Zillah did the toast. Our mother threw eggs in the frying pan. ‘Remember the words of Isaiah, daughters.
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land
. Zillah, watch that toast. It is a sin to waste food.’

My sister never burnt the toast but every day our mother lectured her about the sin of waste as if she did.

Father came in, followed by our brothers, Abraham and Luke.

‘Good morning, daughters,’ Father said. He sat at the table, watching Mother, a look of concern on his face. I wished he’d do something to help her. He prayed, but his prayers hadn’t calmed her mind. Ever since Rebecca ran away she’d been scolding us and preaching at us in case we too did something to shame her.

We served the food and sat down, bowing our heads while Father said grace. Abraham used the freedom from our parents’ attention to pull funny faces at us, the way he always did. He was so lucky — the Rule and the threat of damnation didn’t bother him, and Mother seldom preached at him or Luke. She never scolded either of them.

Grace ended. ‘Heed the words of Titus, my daughters,’ said Mother, not even touching her food. ‘
We should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world
.’

Father carried on eating, Zillah sighed and Luke
said, ‘Be of good comfort, Mother, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.’

Father said, ‘Praise the Lord.’

Mother fell silent. Abraham grinned and began talking to Father about a machine he was fixing in the hire-centre workshop. I ate my food, aware of Zillah’s fascination with our brother’s discussion of hydraulic systems, but I was thinking about Luke and how he often came out with lines of scripture. He was serious, not at all like Abraham. The only thing the same about them was how kind they were. They helped Zillah and me whenever they could. I caught Luke’s eye.
Thank you
.

After the meal, Father and Abraham went to work. Luke went off to get ready for school. Mother bustled from the kitchen in a flurry of quotations from scripture. Zillah and I did the dishes. My sister threw a handful of cutlery into the drawer. ‘I hate the Rule. I hate Elder Stephen. I hate
all
the stupid Elders.’

‘Zillah!’ I clapped my soapy hand over her mouth. ‘Mother will hear you. You don’t know … you don’t understand — we have to obey the Rule. Awful things happen if we don’t.’

The sulkiness vanished. She fixed me with her fierce stare. ‘Awful like Rebecca being dead?’

Lord, please help me
. This was such dangerous territory. ‘Yes. Like Elder Stephen saying she’s dead. But you know she’s not, don’t you?’

‘You say she’s not dead. Abraham says she’s not, and so does Luke. But Elder Stephen says she is.’ Zillah paused, thinking about it. ‘Elder Stephen is mean.
I don’t think Rebecca is dead. I think he tells lies.’

I pulled her into a hug, whispering, ‘Promise you won’t say this to anybody else, Zillah. Please. You must promise.’

‘Will I die like Rebecca if I do?’

She seemed interested rather than worried. I envied her because even thinking about it brought anguish to me. I just said, ‘Come on. Let’s get these finished.’

‘Was Rebecca like Rachel?’ she asked.

‘Shh! Mother will hear you! Yes, they were identical. You know that, Zillah.’

She shook her head. ‘But were they the
same
?’

I washed the last of the plates before I answered. She asked such hard questions. ‘They weren’t the same after Rachel got married. She had to obey the Rule properly then. They were different after that.’

Zillah gazed at me for a long, considering moment but said nothing more. I didn’t relax — she was turning something around in her head.
Please, Lord, send her the wisdom not to speak where an adult will hear
.

She didn’t say anything disastrous while we finished getting ready, nor when we said goodbye to Mother, who farewelled us by saying, ‘Obey the Rule this day, my children. Luke, I entrust you with the task of keeping your sisters’ feet on the path to salvation.’

Luke said, ‘Praise the Lord.’

When the three of us were walking to the bus stop, Zillah said, ‘Luke, do you think people are acting
different? Magdalene thinks so.’ I heard the challenge in her voice. She plainly wasn’t convinced.

Our brother said, ‘People are on edge. Jumpy. It’s not just Mother, although I reckon she’s worse now than she was after Rebecca left.’

I hated thinking about that time — Mother’s hysterics, how she cried and tore at her hair, praying to the Lord to save her children, all her children. She wouldn’t let herself say our sister’s name. Even after the worst of it had passed, she didn’t go back to being our steady, loving mother. She watched us all — especially me and Zillah — nagging at us to obey the Rule, to heed the Rule, to live by the stupid Rule, and she never seemed to notice how hard we tried to please her.

‘Father’s been getting two or three men coming to see him each day,’ Luke said.

‘Elders?’ The sharp pain stabbed at my stomach again. What could they be telling our father?

Luke shook his head. ‘No. Not any of the Elders. Brother Ebenezer, Brother Jedidiah — they both came yesterday.’ Brother Jedidiah was the father of my friend Neriah.

‘Father hasn’t said anything?’But I knew he wouldn’t even if we asked, just as Brother Jedidiah wouldn’t tell Neriah.

‘What does Abraham say?’ Zillah asked.

Luke shrugged. ‘He thinks people are uneasy, but you know how it is. Only the married men get told stuff, so he doesn’t know anything either.’

‘Stupid Rule. Stupid Elders.’ Zillah went back to kicking her feet on the road. ‘They should tell us stuff.
They’re mean and they’re dumb.’

I stopped dead, my hands flying to my mouth as if covering it would somehow smother her words.

Luke took my hand, gripping it hard as he said, ‘Dearest Zillah, you’ll grieve Mother and Father if they hear you say that.’

Her face stayed mutinous. ‘I won’t say it where they can hear. I’m not stupid and I’m not wicked and full of sin. I don’t care what Elder Stephen says.’

I still couldn’t speak. It was all I could do to keep from weeping.

Luke let go of my hand so he could crouch down to look in her face. ‘Zillah, you’re a good girl. We know that and so does the Lord. Remember? Whenever anybody says you’re wicked and will burn in hell, what do you need to say to yourself?’

She touched his cheek with a finger, the way Mother used to do when she wanted to tell us something important. ‘But how can the Lord be my strength and salvation? The Lord is mean and Elder Stephen is mean.’

‘Zillah, hush!’

Her words didn’t upset Luke though. ‘Elder Stephen’s Lord sure is mean. But I don’t pray to that Lord — I pray to the kind one. You can too, if you want to.’

Her face cleared. ‘Okay. You’re kind too, Luke. Magdalene, you can pray to the nice Lord and then you won’t be sad.’

We took her hands. ‘Thanks, Zillah,’ I said. ‘We’ll both pray to the nice Lord. But don’t tell anyone else.’

She didn’t promise. I looked at Luke, but he mouthed,
Don’t worry
, and said to Zillah, ‘You can tell Abraham, but nobody else. Elder Stephen would just love to banish us if he heard. Don’t give him the chance.’

She shut her mouth tight and shrugged herself out of his grip. Did she know the danger she could put us in, especially if something was happening in the Faith?
Please, Lord, send her wisdom
.

Perhaps the Lord answered my prayer — in any case, the bus ride passed without incident and when I saw her at school during break she was running with two of the boys in her class. It was against the Rule for girls to run, especially with boys, but her supervisor was a kind woman who understood children needed to break free sometimes.

I went as usual with my friends to talk under the tree at the edge of our shabby grounds. Rebecca and Rachel had done the same, but somehow I couldn’t see Zillah lasting long enough at this school to follow our example.

I shook the thought away when Carmel snapped her fingers in front of my face. ‘Wake up, Magdalene! You just aren’t with it today, girl.’

‘I apologise, Sister Carmel. I will pray for forgiveness.’ It was the way we responded to Sister Leah, our grumpy supervisor, when she scolded us.

Carmel pulled a face. ‘You’re forgiven if you answer the question.’

Jemimah said, ‘You’ll have to ask her again. Her mind is floating off on a cloud today.’

Carmel repeated her question. ‘Who does Abraham want to marry?’ I must have looked blank, or astonished, because she added, ‘You know — Abraham! Your eighteen-year-old handsome hunk of a brother. The one who makes the kitchen girls go soppy. That Abraham!’

Jemimah shot her a sly glance. ‘Not only the kitchen girls!’

Carmel’s face went pink but she ignored the teasing. ‘Well?’

My mood lightened. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but Abraham doesn’t think about girls. If he could marry a machine, it’d be different. But girls — no.’