Free Stranded by Emily Barr

perfect,’ she says. ‘I’ll talk to him again. We’ll get it set up.’

Chapter Eight
    Cathy

    June 1988

    They told us! I have never been happier. Everything I was worrying about has vanished, faded away. It is the truth, I know it. The truth is far better than anything I could possibly have imagined.
    I no longer have to worry about a niggling desire to explore the world. I don’t have to dread the mechanics of what marriage to Philip might hold for me. I do not have to pine about not being allowed to have a job, let alone a career, and wanting to go to university. None of that matters any more. I am completely free and I can look forward with happiness and excitement to unimaginable joy. Thank God for that – literally.
    I am in the best place I could possibly be, the only place in the world. I looked at Martha’s face last night, and I loved her. How could I ever have found her irritating and petty? I saw my feelings reflected in her: she loved me too, for the first time in her life. We are the luckiest people in the world.
    Everything is about to change. ‘Change’ is too small a word for it. Everything is going to be transformed beyond all recognition.
    Our arch-Father, Moses, the leader of our community and also biological father to many of us (including me), gathered the whole community together. All of us, eighty-three people, in one place. Children sat on the floor, adults on chairs, and Father Moses stood on the platform. Then he climbed up on to his chair and then stepped on to the table, and he stood on the table and put his arms up and shouted out.
    I cannot repeat his words exactly, not even in my head, because they are too holy. But this is the Truth that he told us.
    The Rapture is coming. The Lord is coming to earth to reclaim the faithful. On June the 21st, midsummer night, He will come. If I am worthy (and I know I am not, though I will try to be between now and then, a manoeuvre He will no doubt be expecting, but I believe him to be kind to repentant sinners, so it could go either way), I will be taken with the others to heaven, to dwell with Him for eternity. If I am not, I will be left on earth with the other sinners, and we will bear the effects of His wrath, which will be well deserved.
    I would like to wish away all my previous heretical thoughts, but since God has seen them, of course, there seems no point. I am truly, truly repentant and I hope He sees this too. I wish I could control my mind completely. Sometimes I find myself thinking bad thoughts purely because I know it is of the utmost importance that I don’t. I’ll suddenly realise I’ve been daydreaming about going to university, and then I will kick myself. I don’t mean to do it. I hope God realises that.
    If I am left behind, I will know that it is what I deserve, and I will do my best for the other sinners when the Apocalypse happens.
    What’s more, Father Moses has given us work to do.
    We have to tell the world the truth, to give the sinners a chance to repent. Father Moses says that Jesus, who visited him when he was watching the news on the television, told him that each one of us has to bring at least one former sinner into the compound. They have to be saved, to want to be saved. Each of us children has to bring someone from school, even Martha and me, who are just about to finish our exams and leave. ‘No exceptions!’ he roared, and we jumped in our skins, because it was the voice of Jesus speaking through Moses’ mouth. At least, I think it was.
    I am going to go to school tomorrow and give it my very best shot. A week ago, I would have felt myself being crippled with embarrassment at the very idea of trying to bring someone from school, a sinner from the outside world, into our Village. I wanted to belong in their world, not to bring them to ours. Now I know that it is the only way to save them. I cannot wait to get to school and talk. They will laugh, and for the first time in my life I can truthfully say