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1

THEN

If you’re looking from one of the windows of the schoolroom, beyond the Wall and the Gate, you can see a carpet of trees, and, further away, mountains. On a really nice day you can see the blue then white tops of the tallest peaks, but when it is rainy or cloudy it looks like the sky ends at our Wall.

You’re not really supposed to look up at the sky, though. Not while you are working. I have already gotten into trouble for that today.

I’m keeping my eyes down now, carefully, looking only at the pebbles and gravel on the stones of the path behind the kitchen garden, watching them tumble and skitter back onto the earth as I sweep the path clean. The Daughters have to do this job every week.

I stop for a moment, and prop the broom against me so I can reach up and sort my hair. It has actually come loose from its pins, but it’s only an excuse. I’m really doing it because if I don’t do something other than sweeping for one second, I will scream. Or laugh, or shout, or any one of a hundred other things that get you in trouble.

There’s a smack against the back of my legs. My knees crumple and the broom falls.

Angela hits the back of my knees with her broom again. ‘You’re supposed to be sweeping, Catherine,’ she says. ‘Not doing your hair. Vanity is a Transgression.’ Her hair never seems to come loose from its pins. She never gets in trouble for looking up at the sky while she’s supposed to be working. I bend to pick up my broom, trying to ignore the smarting from my legs, but she kicks it away.

‘I was,’ I say. I try to pick the broom up again, but she plants her foot squarely on it.

‘Was what?’ she says.

Angela has spoken loud enough that the other Daughters dotted around the paths have looked up and are watching. Their teeth are out in grins. I look down at my feet.

‘I was sweeping,’ I say. One of the Sisters will be round to check on us soon. I have to be working when she does. I bend and pull at the broom, but Angela is still keeping her weight on it.

‘Angela . . .’ I say, and I pull again, harder. She lifts her foot at the exact right moment so that I fly backwards and fall hard on the ground, losing my grip on the broom so that it whacks me on the head. The laughter of the others is like a cheese grater over knuckles. They all hate me. They always have. Amy is the only person in the whole world who likes me, and she’s not here right now.

I get to my feet. I won’t cry in front of Angela.

She’s not looking at me, anyway. She’s looking at the other Daughters, and they’re all still laughing.

I blunder down a side path, pushing past the other girls. I hate her. I hate her. She’s a horrible, sly girl, but everyone loves her. The others, the Sisters – I’ve even seen some Brothers nodding approvingly as she passes the pews on the way to the female section of the Worship Hall. No one else seems to realise what a snake she is.

No. ‘Snake’ isn’t quite enough. I need another word, a spitting word, a word I can use like the Sisters use their canes. But I can’t think of it.

A breeze rushes past, cooling the skin on the back of my neck. I can’t hear the others anymore. I’ve ended up right around the corner, further than we’re supposed to go.

We had been working on the path that goes around the kitchen gardens, which are next to the Warriors’ Training Grounds. The gardens are fenced in, so when you’re in them it’s hard to see the Grounds, which are also fenced in. There are gaps between the wooden slats, but you’re rarely unsupervised enough, or Being Idle enough, to put your eye to them to try and see through.

But the path I’m on now has split off and led me around the corner of the Training Grounds, and here the wooden fence stops halfway along and the rest is only a wire fence like the one surrounding the chicken coop. I can see right through.

There’s a huge field with neatly cut grass, and in the centre is a building with a roof but no walls, just evenly spaced pillars. There is a large space under the roof, like one big room that you can see right through. It’s filled with Warriors.

They’re too far away to notice me on the boundary here, but I press myself against the wooden section of the fence anyway and peep around the corner.

There’s maybe twenty Warriors in the building with no walls, and they all have long sticks in their hands. The sticks look almost like the broom I’m holding, except without the bristles on the end. They’re all moving together, as though they’re one person. They look like water flowing over rocks. Their front foot slides forward, then the sticks swing around, then they spin, then the sticks slash down and thrust out . . .

This is it. This is what I’ve wanted to see for so long. This is what the boys are doing while the Daughters sweep and clean and cook.

My whole body aches with wanting. I want to be like that, part of that group, moving strongly and surely. Wearing clothes that let you jump and kick and spin.

There’s a rhythmic thumping sound, and I pull back just in time as a group of boys run past, their feet all hitting the ground at the exact same moment. They sound like a thunderstorm beating on the roof of the dormitories.

I push myself back into the fence. My tunic is brown, not too different from the shade of the wood, but different enough to be noticed, if they look at the right angle.

There is a loud thump, and the fence judders and jumps behind me. I spring away. There is a boy pushing himself up on the other side, his white T-shirt flashing through the gaps.

‘Fuck’s sake, Caleb!’

‘You know what Elder Thomas says happens to little bitches who come last!’ another voice yells. There is laughter, and the boy jogs off after the group. The second voice – Caleb – floats back to me. ‘You get slammed!’

The sound of the feet slapping the ground retreats, and I catch my breath. I’ve never heard boys so close before. I’ve never really heard them at all – being part of the chanting in the Worship Hall doesn’t count, because you can’t really hear individual voices then.

Boys’ voices are loud, and they even seem to have words that girls don’t have. Fuck. Bitch.

When the sound of their feet has totally gone, I peek through the wire again. The boys in the open-sided building are still doing their movements, and I can see the group of running boys round the far corner of the field.

It must feel amazing to run.

I catch the sound of voices again. Deeper this time. Men’s voices.

If I try to sneak off, they will definitely see me. But if I stay still, they might see me anyway through the gaps in the fence.

I turn so I’m standing sideways against a wooden slat. Even if they look directly at the fence, they shouldn’t see me. Oh Father, please don’t let them see me.

‘Not a bad pack, these ones.’

‘Mm. Acceptable.’

‘We’re having some issues with Benjamin, the one at the back there. Just weak stock. But the rest are sound.’

The voices move past me, and I see glimpses of the men as they go, following the route the running boys took. One with a white shirt and grey trousers – an Elder – and one dressed all in black.

I press a hand against my mouth. The Hand of God. The man in black is the Hand of God.

The Elder keeps talking. ‘We’re quite proud of Caleb, actually. Future squad leader, certainly. Father’s Guard, even. Unless you have other plans for him?’

‘No. Not as yet. None of them are promising enough.’

The voices fade as they move away. I let myself relax.

Promising enough for what? Does the Hand of God personally train one of the boys?

‘There she is!’

A claw in my hair, and my head is dragged back painfully. Angela’s voice again, joyful: ‘I found her! She’s here!’

I reach out to slap at her, but she has a grip on me at arm’s length. ‘Let go!’

‘She’s here! I knew she’d sneaked off!’ More excited voices, twittering and laughing, coming from the far end of the path, where it comes around the corner from the kitchen gardens.

My head screams where she’s pulling at my hair. Hatred boils inside and comes up and out of my throat.

‘Get off me! Get off me, you . . . you little bitch!’

There is a shocked silence. Angela’s fingers pull away, strands of my hair ripping out with them. I clamp a hand to my scalp and turn to see not just Angela and the other Daughters, but the tall, brown-clothed figure of a Sister as well.

I want so very badly to be a boy. I’d be on the other side of the fence, running at the head of the pack, far away from all the eyes on me. If I could just be a boy, right now, I would leave my girl’s body lying here on the ground, empty and hollow, and I’d never think about it ever again.

I open my mouth, but there’s no use trying to explain. Nothing I could say would matter.

The Sister steps forward. It is Sister Morningbright, who takes us for Scripture once a week. She has never liked me. There are red slashes of colour high on her cheeks. ‘You,’ she says, and her voice is low but fills the air. ‘You have a filthy mouth, Catherine. Do you know what happens to girls with filthy mouths?’

She advances, and I can’t help backing away, but she’s bigger and faster than me, and she catches me easily. Her fingers fix on the back of my neck as she forces me down and gets heavily to her knees behind me.

I find my voice. ‘Please . . . please, Sister . . .’

‘What’s going on here?’ A man’s voice.

‘Ah – ah – my apologies. My apologies.’ The pressure lifts from the back of my neck. Sister Morningbright flaps a hand at the girls. ‘Kneel, Daughters!’

Angela and the others hurriedly drop to their knees, keeping their gaze on the ground. Everyone knows that you can’t look the Hand of God in the eye.

‘This area is for the use of men only, Sister.’ It’s the Elder speaking. The Hand of God hasn’t said anything yet.

‘Of course, Elder, my sincere apologies. This girl—’ she gives me a shake like she’s a dog and I’m a rat in her jaws ‘—sneaked away from her industry. The Daughters were sweeping the paths beside the kitchen gardens.’

Her voice is strange. It’s gone all sort of high and fluttery. I would laugh if it wouldn’t just make everything worse.

I look down at the ground. We’re at the edge of the path, and dark earth looms beneath the gravel strip in front of the fence. Just beyond are two pairs of shiny black shoes. The Elder’s, and the Hand of God’s.

‘Sneaked away, did she?’ the Elder booms. ‘Abandoning her industry? That’s a Transgression, you know, girl. My, my. What would Father think?’

I do not know what Father would think. I suppose He would be angry, like everyone else.

‘That’s ten of the best, then, Sister.’

‘Of course, Elder. To be administered directly. But she also used profanity.’

‘Profanity? Well. Well, well. So very disappointing, Daughter. Very, very disappointing.’

There is a small sound, like the noise made by someone blowing air out through their nostrils in a short burst. Almost like a laugh. It came from in front of me, where the Hand of God is standing.

‘I was intending to administer the appropriate Atonement, Elder, if you—’

‘Of course, of course, Sister. Your department entirely. Carry on.’

‘Thank you, Elder.’

I watch as Sister Morningbright’s hand sweeps gravel away from the earth in front of me. There’s a slight shake in her fingers. I have never seen her nervous or deferential before. But then, I’ve never seen her speak to men before.

I feel like I’m just watching what’s happening. I can’t feel anything. I’m just kind of floating in my body, seeing her fingers dig into the earth and haul up a handful. There are little chunks of stone in it, and I am sure I can see the shiny, wriggly back of some kind of insect. Feeling crashes back into me, and I feel hot sick rise in my throat.

‘What’s her name?’

Sister Morningbright’s hand freezes.

‘I – I – your pardon, Hand of God?’

One pair of shoes steps closer to the fence. I can see the cuffs of his trousers: a crisp, spotless black.

‘It’s quite a simple question. What is her name?’

‘Catherine, Hand of God,’ says Sister Morningbright, stuttering over the ‘C’. Some of the earth in her hand crumbles away and patters to the ground. The insect is still in the centre of her hand, half buried, back legs waving.

‘Catherine.’

My name is in his mouth. He says it softly, like he’s satisfied with it. ‘Catherine.’

The moment stretches. I stop breathing.

‘Proceed, then.’

A silence, then: ‘Thank you, Hand of God.’ Her hand holding the mud clenches, and the strong fingers of her other hand claw at my mouth. I shake my head, try to clamp my lips, but her nails hook into my skin and the bright pain makes me open up. Her fingers worm in, pulling my jaw so far open that it feels like it will tear off in her hand.

‘You know what we do to girls with filthy mouths,’ she says, and she sounds more confident now. She’s back on familiar territory.

I’m pinned under her arm, against her chest. The threads of the flame-and-circle stitched on her dress scrape my cheek. I try to shake my head out of her grip, but she hooks her fingers behind my front teeth and wrenches my head up and back.

My gaze is dragged up with my head, and I find myself looking at the Elder and the Hand of God. They are huge and dark against the bright sky, criss-crossed by the wire of the fence. The Elder has his hands clasped together in front of him, and is nodding. His face is sunk into a thick neck, his tongue running over his lips.

The Hand of God has one hand on the fence, his fingers curling through the holes. He is looking at me with his head on one side. He sees me staring right at him, but he doesn’t seem angry. He’s just watching.

Wet, foul earth is crammed into my mouth. There’s mud up my nose. I try to spit, but more is pushed in and I feel it filling my mouth, gritting in my teeth, clagging up my throat.

More earth, strong fingers against my cheeks, holding it in. I’m gagging but there’s nowhere for the sick to go, it’s filling my throat, I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I’m going to die.

She’s going to kill me.

Her hand disappears, and I fall forward, retching and digging the mud out with my fingers, and I’m coughing and choking and on my hands and knees, and I breathe in finally but the air is full of little bits of grit and then stinging bile is coming up and rushing out. I spit and spit but the mud is everywhere, between all my teeth, in my throat.

I blink away the tears in my eyes and see the mud and sick on the ground between my hands. A little many-legged insect is struggling weakly in the middle of the puddle, its body slick with vomit.

‘This is what we do to girls with filthy mouths,’ Sister Morningbright is saying behind me. ‘We make them eat their words.’

I look at the wriggling bug, at how pathetic and broken it is. This is how the Hand of God must see me. This is how they all must see me.

2

NOW

A hand falls onto my shoulder and I wheel around. Fatima jumps back.

‘Christ, Zoe!’

‘Sorry – sorry.’ A wave of dizziness washes over me. I steady myself with a hand on a stack of boxes. ‘You gave me a fright.’

Fatima lowers her hands, but is still looking at me warily. Over her shoulder, I can see through the little back room out to the cafe. There is a soft hum of chatter, clinking cutlery, a trill from the bell over the door as a customer leaves. All the usual mid-afternoon coffee-shop sounds.

Fatima shows me her phone screen. There is a bright yellow taxi icon, and a cheery message underneath, saying ‘I’m on my way!’

‘You’re going home,’ she says, slipping the mobile back into the pocket of her apron.

‘What?’

‘Zoe, you’ve barely kept on your feet all day. You’ve been pale and coughing and . . . sort of out of it, to be honest. I texted Meg and she said I was to send you home. The taxi’s on her. The evening shift are coming in soon, I can manage until then.’

‘Ah no, I can’t leave you on your own—’ I start coughing.

‘Janey Mac, Zoe. You’re a living health hazard. I’ll be fine. The taxi’ll be here any minute, just feck off and don’t for the love of god come in tomorrow.’

‘I’m off for a couple of days anyway,’ I say, giving in and pulling on my jacket.

‘Good! Go hibernate. Stay warm. Drink lots of fluids.’ Fatima hands me my scarf and before I know it, I am being bundled into a taxi. She watches as it pulls away, and I give her two fingers out of the back window. She gives me two fingers back, laughing, and as the car turns the corner I see her ducking back inside.

The brightly painted letters on the sign saying ‘The Underpass Cafe’ and the fogged-over windows hung with twinkling lights smear and blur as rain hits the taxi windows. Although I never supposed that a tiny, book-filled cafe in a nondescript corner of Dublin would become like a home to me, or its owner like a mother, it has and she is. In the six years I’ve worked here, I’ve never had to be sent home. I feel like crying, all of a sudden. I really must be sick. I don’t ever cry.

I place my palms flat against my thighs, try to breathe deeply. I’m all right. Everything is okay. I tap my fingertips, one after the other, and count to four along with the taps.

One – It’s only a cold, I’ll feel fine soon

Two – Fatima and Meg are concerned, not angry

Three – It’s okay to rest sometimes

Four – My shift was almost over anyway, so it’s not like I’ve hugely inconvenienced anyone

Okay. That’s better. Those are four true things, even if number two and three are particularly hard to accept. I just hate not being useful.

I close my eyes, and repeat my list of four, letting the pattering of the rain on the taxi roof soothe and wash over me.

A tapping noise pulls me up out of a half doze. The driver is peering through the Perspex partition at me. I heave open the door and stumble out into a gust of wind. He winds his window down. ‘You all right there, love? You’re not lookin too grand,’ he says.

Something is wrong with his face. What is wrong with his face?

I don’t feel right. This isn’t just being sick. This is . . .

Distantly, I feel rain soaking through the knees of my jeans. The driver’s voice comes into focus, like when static blurs into words on a radio. He’s asking me if I’m all right.

I am not all right. I can’t get a grip on what direction anything is in – the ground, the sky, anything. It’s as though the world has lurched to the side and then turned upside down. Everything is in the wrong place.

I use the door of the cab to pull myself up. The driver is unbuckling his seat belt, about to get out and help me, but I wave to show I’m okay and stumble away into the rain, feeling like I’ve just stepped off a boat that was on choppy seas. I don’t look at the driver’s face again.

The door to my building is standing open, but that’s not new. The part of the city it’s in isn’t great, but my little flat is my sanctuary. It’s small, and too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer, but it’s my own place, filled with my own things, and I know that as soon as I get inside, I’ll feel much better.

I can’t quite see right. It’s like there’s shadows where there shouldn’t be, too many of them and at strange angles. I steady myself with a hand on the bannister and drag myself up the stairs to my flat.

I’ll be okay once I get inside. I might not get into bed right away. I might strip off my soaked jeans, make a cup of tea in my favourite mug, the giant stripy blue one Meg gave me, wrap myself in my cosy winter blanket with the constellations on it and curl up on my squashy old couch. I’ll nap there, and then later maybe read my book. If I feel like eating I might even order takeaway instead of cooking, as a treat.

Everything will be fine if I can just get inside.

I have to pause on the way up the stairs. Black spots waft in from the edge of my vision. I need to sit down.

My key catches in the door instead of clicking through smoothly. I must have forgotten to lock it this morning. I try the Yale lock, and that’s on properly at least. I push open the door and drop my keys and phone into the bowl on the little table just inside, and hang up my jacket and scarf. I shuffle down the dim hallway to the kitchen. I’ll put the kettle on first, then get into my pyjamas . . .

There is a man sitting at my kitchen table.

He is dressed all in black, with a black overcoat folded neatly over the chair beside him. His hair is greyer than it was, but it is still recognisably him. He is tracing a design on the tabletop with one of his fingers, and he looks up as I come in.

‘Hello, Catherine,’ he says.

My legs can’t hold me, and I drop to the ground. There is a rushing noise in my ears, and everything is overbright. This is not happening. He cannot be here.

He is speaking, his mouth is moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

He stands and moves towards me, and I want to get up and run, I want to open my mouth and scream, but the black spots are back, crowding into my vision, flowing and merging into the darkness of him, until the last of the light is gone and they have blotted out everything.

3

THEN

It always seems to be dark in the Scripture room, no matter how bright it is outside. Today it is blazing sunshine and Sister Morningbright has decided to take class outside, but since the incident at the Training Grounds, I’m banned from going outside unless it’s to the Nutrition Hall or to Worship. So when she looked out of the window earlier and pulled her collar away from her sweaty neck with one finger and announced in a sugary voice to the Daughters that it was SUCH a nice day that they would go outside and continue learning Father’s words in the sun, she had to come up with something for me to do instead.

‘Give this room a proper clean, Catherine – and I mean a proper clean,’ she said as she stood at the door, watching all the girls file out with their heads bent and their hands clasped in front of them. Several of them still managed to look up at me as they passed to give me a face that meant you don’t get to enjoy the sunshine. I kept my hands folded in front of me too, head down, and tried to look appropriately humbled. Even after the door clicked shut behind her and the noise of the Daughters’ footsteps trooping down the stairs had faded, I kept my face carefully blank. When it had been silent in the classroom for two whole minutes, I let myself smile.

I can hear them through the open windows now, Sister Morningbright’s voice reciting the lesson, then the chorus of girls chanting the reply.

‘We are Father’s precious Children and these are His words.’

‘We are Father’s precious Children and these are His words.’

‘What is the chief Duty of Women?’

‘To Serve and be Fruitful.’

I decide to start with dusting, because it’s the least strenuous thing I can think of doing. I flap a yellow cloth at some of the framed Scriptures on the wall: Watch Thou for Transgressions beside the big window, then A Woman’s Silence is her Glory next to the chalkboard, and Lead us, Father, to the Perfect World to Come! above the light switch. There’s a huge wooden flame-and-circle mounted on the opposite wall, above Hold Tight to My Words, Children, Lest ye Become a Recreant, which probably needs some kind of polish or something because it’s shiny. The one stitched to my tunic, over my heart, is getting a bit worn, and the butter-yellow flame has threads trailing over the sky blue of the circle. I’ll need to sort that before one of the Sisters notices.

I didn’t see any polish in the cupboard when I fetched the rest of the cleaning stuff earlier, but I don’t suppose there’s any harm in checking again.

The corridor outside is even quieter than the classroom. The whole building must be empty. Our group was the only one doing Scripture just now – everyone else is working. The whole building belongs to me, just for a moment.

I tiptoe up the stairs, not wanting to disturb the silence. The cleaning things are kept in a cupboard on the same level as the dormitories, above the classrooms. All the doors are closed, so the corridor is dark and cool. I trail my hand along the plaster of the wall as I go, mainly because it’s the sort of thing you’re not supposed to do. The wall is painted a uriney sort of yellow, flaking in places. I go past my dormitory, which is nearest the stairs, then past the next one, which is for the older girls. That one is Amy’s dormitory.

She is the only person in the whole world who likes me even a little bit. But even she isn’t talking to me anymore.

The cleaning cupboard is opposite the Ablutions Room. I pull the door shut behind me, so I’m in total darkness. No one else knows exactly where I am right at this very moment. The thrill of it makes me want to giggle, or jump, or something. It feels almost Transgressive.

Something brushes my face in the darkness, and I flap a hand in front of me. It’s a cord, swinging from the ceiling. I give it a tug and the little space is flooded with light. Squinting up, I can see a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, beside a trapdoor. A lone moth floats lazily up from somewhere among the shelves and starts dancing around the light.

I find a box with a can of polish and some cloths and balance it in one hand as I turn the light back off and close the cupboard door. Then I open the door again, a little, so the moth can get out.

I hover in front of the door to the Ablutions Room, instead of going straight downstairs. There’s no point in going in. Amy hasn’t left me a message for weeks now, not since the latest group of the Awakened arrived. Not since Teneil arrived.

Teneil came at the beginning of the summer, when the sky was starting to stay bright later and later. I didn’t take much notice at first – she’s fifteen, older than me by three years; we aren’t in any of the same classes or chore groups – and anyway we’re not supposed to pay any particular attention to the recently Awakened.

But a few weeks after Teneil arrived, things started to go wrong between Amy and me. Since we are in adjoining dormitories, we both use the same Ablutions Room, and we have this secret way of communicating using our washbags.

Amy and I hang our washbags up on their nails in the Ablutions Room with our names facing out, so they are easy to find. The nails run along the walls on either side of the space, then rows of showerheads that spit freezing water line the far edge of the room, across acres of chilly tile. Cubicles for the necessary face them, and down the middle is a double row of back-to-back sinks.

The Ablutions Room is busy three times a day – morning ablutions, afternoon necessary break and evening ablutions. Daughters in their nighties or tunics shift from foot to foot in the icy air, the noise of the pipes clattering overhead as we line up in silent rows to make our ablutions or do a necessary. Two Sisters wait, one at each end of the room, looming brown pillars above our heads. At times, you can get in when no one is there, but you have to be clever. You volunteer to take a message, or to do cleanup duty in the dormitories, and you sneak in when no one is looking. Then, the room is much bigger, and you can hear the bright lights fizzing, and the tiles repeat your steps back to you. You have to be quick, and you have to look over your shoulder the whole time. Getting caught somewhere you oughtn’t be is a Transgression.

If Amy and I want to leave each other a message, we grab the other’s bag when we get a chance – when no one else is looking, or when we can snatch a moment on our own – take it into a cubicle and unscrew the handle of the hairbrush kept inside. The hairbrush handle is hollow – a perfect space for tucking a tightly folded scrap of paper with a note scribbled on it. Once you’ve screwed the handle back on, there’s no way to see that there is a secret in there. We hang the bags back up with the name facing the wall – then you know that there is a message waiting for you.

The messages are never really anything important. Sometimes Amy’ll just write things like ‘Sit besid me at