I am Rebecca (18 page)

Kirby said, ‘Sure will, kid.’

Miriam fetched Nina’s big sewing scissors, and with a couple of clacks of the blades Kirby chopped off half the length of my braid.

I shook out the rest. For the first time in my life, it floated free around my shoulders.

I could do this. I could live in the world.

That night I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I no longer saw Rachel looking back at me. It wasn’t just the hair — it was something about how the girl I was watching looked at me as if the world interested her, as if she knew she could learn, ask questions, use her mind.

I went to bed and wept again for my sister.

I STARTED SCHOOL
at the end of January. They decided to put me into Year 11 even though I was old enough to be at least a year ahead.

I chose to go to a co-ed school without a uniform.

‘Why?’ Edwin asked.

‘I want to make my own decisions, including about what to wear,’ I told him. I no longer worried about trying to give him the right answers.

He decided I didn’t need any more sessions. ‘Just pop in now and again. I’ll follow your progress with great interest.’

‘Thank you.’ I hesitated, not sure if I should say what was in my mind. I waited for him to give me permission. When he didn’t, I walked out and closed the door behind me.

I really wanted
… That’s when I remembered, or maybe realised, I didn’t have to ask permission. If I wanted to say something, I should just say it.

I knocked on the door again.

‘Edwin — I don’t know if this will come out right, but you’re the first person who wanted to know what I really thought.’ I stopped — there was more to it than that. I tried again. ‘It’s like you treat me as a proper person. Weird.’

‘Good weird or bad weird?’

I turned the tables on him. ‘Edwin, use your brain. You’ve got a good one in your skull.’

I closed the door behind me on his shout of laughter.

SCHOOL WAS HARD WORK
— there were so many gaps in my learning. But I loved it. I came to understand what Miriam meant when she said design school challenged her mind.

But as March approached and the time for Rachel’s confinement drew near, I ached to be with her. Although I no longer knew which god, if any, to believe in, I prayed she’d be safe. I prayed her baby would be well and healthy.

I studied harder than ever, partly because it helped take my mind off the pain of losing Rachel and the rest of my family.

I went to see Edwin. He had no comfort for me. ‘Freedom comes with a cost, I’m afraid. It’s a hard thing to accept. I’m sorry.’

I told him I prayed for them, and was grateful he didn’t ask if I still believed in the Lord. When I tried
to think about what I believed now, the Lord got mixed up with Elder Stephen. I didn’t have a scrap of belief in Elder Stephen.

I began spending days after class in town, looking at baby shops. Several times I nearly bought things — a rattle, a teddy bear, a little sun bonnet. Always I came away empty-handed. I couldn’t reach over the rift the Elders had driven between Rachel and me. It would cause her immense pain. I couldn’t do that to my beloved sister. Each day, when I woke up, I sent my thoughts and love to her:
Have you had your baby yet? Are you well? Is the baby well?

School was my solace. My test and exam results improved from dreadful, to bad, to average, to reasonable by mid-year. By mid-year too, I was comfortable going to church each Sunday, even though my old certainty about what to believe was no longer there.

I went to see Edwin about it. He grinned at me. ‘You don’t want much, do you Rebecca Pilgrim? Fine minds all through the centuries have struggled to know what to believe. Welcome to worldliness, kid.’

Trust him to put my questions into perspective.

AT THE START
of the third term, our English class had to do speeches. The idea of getting up and speaking in front of everyone was daunting. I’d come a long way in the months since my escape, but this felt like too much too soon.

‘Course you can do it,’ Miriam said. ‘If you can obey the idiot Rule for sixteen years, you can for sure give a four-minute speech.’

‘Just talk about your life,’ Daniel said. ‘How many other kids have had your sort of life? They’ll be riveted.’

What a hideous idea.

What a brilliant idea.

I worked on it, practised it, got swamped with nerves. I moaned about it to Kirby, emailing her in Japan.

Ooooh
, she wrote back.
Poor Rebecca! It must be as bad as waiting to embrace old Saggy in the marriage bed. NOT!!!!

I was still nervous, but I would survive.

ON THE DAY
, I carried the wedding dress to school in a bag. I was third on the list of speakers. While Jarrod was giving his speech, I went to the English department office to change into the dress. I braided my hair into a single plait and I put on the black lace-up shoes and the black socks.

‘Ready when you are, Rebecca,’ Mr Chaney called.

I walked in. The kids stared. I knew now what a truly ghastly dress it was. I began speaking.

‘Praise the Lord.

‘I am Rebecca, daughter of Caleb Pilgrim and his wife Naomi. I am the sister of Daniel, Miriam,
Rachel, Abraham, Luke, Magdalene and Zillah. We all have biblical names. We were all born into a religion called the Children of the Faith.

‘The dress I am wearing was meant to be my wedding dress. Almost a year ago, the leader of the Faith said the Lord told him to take me as his wife. He was seventy-six years old. I was sixteen. I had to marry him. The Lord spoke through him. If I refused, I would be refusing to obey the Lord and would end up in the fires of eternal damnation.

‘I ran away on my wedding day.’

Daniel was right: there wasn’t a movement from my classmates. Every one of them stared at me, some of them with their mouths open.

‘I know seven of the psalms by heart. It was how we were disciplined. We had to stay in a small room all day, learning the psalm Father set for us. Mother was allowed to give us three pieces of plain bread for each meal, and a glass of water. In the evening, we had to recite the psalm we’d learnt.

‘My twin sister Rachel and I were sent to the discipline room for two days for not turning away when we saw our cousin, who had been expelled from the Faith and deemed to be dead. I committed the further sin of speaking five words to her.

‘A line from Psalm 18, one of the psalms Father set us to learn, reads:
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid
.

‘If we got into less serious trouble, Father would call the whole family to his study. We had to kneel
on the wooden floor while he prayed for us. If we were lucky, the prayer only lasted for ten minutes. Other times, we stayed on our knees for much longer.

‘I ask you all to kneel now. Close your eyes while I pray for you the way we were prayed for.’

They looked stunned, but they did it — perhaps encouraged by Mr Chaney, who also dropped to his knees.

I kept it short, using the vocabulary of the Elders. Transgression, repentance, vanity, obedience, iniquity. ‘You may resume your seats.’

I waited for the rustling to stop.

‘When my sister Miriam ran away, we had to stay on our knees for two days, praying. All she wanted was to draw and paint, but that is against the Rule. It is vanity to have images of yourself and it is idolatry to have non-religious pictures on the walls. She too was expelled and deemed dead. We weren’t allowed to mention her name ever again. She was deemed to be one of the flood of the ungodly.

‘You will be asking yourselves: why didn’t I run? Why did I stay?

‘In the end, I did run. But there is a cost to freedom. I’m dead to my family now. I am also one of the flood of the ungodly. I’ll never know if my twin sister gave birth to a boy or a girl in March this year. I’ll never know if she is well, or if she nearly died the way my mother nearly died with her last baby.

‘I’m luckier than some who are cast out. I have
my brother Daniel and my sister Miriam on the outside as well.’

I told them why Daniel had been cast out. I could see the disgust, the incredulity on their faces when they heard it was because he wanted to study to be a doctor.

‘That was my life. It’s not been easy finding a new way to live in the world. I’m still working it out. Freedom is precious but costly. That is a thing I know for sure, and it’s about all I know for sure. For now, it is enough to build on.

‘I end this speech with the words the Children of the Faith say at the end of any important conversation.

‘Praise the Lord.’

There was a silence before applause crashed through the room.

It was a great relief to shed the dress, unplait my hair, and put my jeans and sweatshirt on again.

I’m not Sister Rebecca. I am Rebecca.

Fleur Beale is the author of many award-winning books for children and young adults — she has now had more than 50 books published in New Zealand, as well as being published in the United States, the UK and Germany.

In 2012, she won the Margaret Mahy Medal for her outstanding contribution to children’s writing. In the 2009 LIANZA Children’s Book Awards, she won the Esther Glen Award for distinguished contribution to children’s literature for
Juno of Taris
, and
Fierce September
won the young adult category in the 2011 NZ Post Children’s Book Awards as well as the LIANZA Young Adult Award in 2011.

Fleur is the only writer to have twice won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book, with
Slide the Corner
in 2007, and
I Am Not Esther
in 2009.

A former high-school teacher, Fleur now lives in Wellington.

Speed Freak
(2013)

The Boy in the Olive Grove
(2012)

Dirt Bomb
(2011)

Heart of Danger
(2011)

Fierce September
(2010)

Sins of the Father
(2009)

End of the Alphabet
(2009)

Juno of Taris
(2008)

The Transformation of Minna Hargreaves
(2007)

A Respectable Girl
(2006)

I Am Not Esther
(1998)