“So?” I pressed, not totally sure if I even wanted to know.
“Most involve us calling upon nature, chanting if you will. The first one is a cleansing and the call will be for nature to accept you and accept us. Ritual two,” she started, closing the doors behind us, “links us to you. We have to become one entity to follow you into eternity.”
I gritted my teeth. “And how long will I be in eternity alone until you all follow? You killing yourselves after or waiting out your cosy, little lives here until you die old, fat and happy?”
“It is not what you think, Scarlett; you will be happy. You will be at peace.”
“So you are living out your lives here. Lovely. And I was perfectly peaceful back home.”
“You will understand if you allow yourself to open your mind to us.”
“Perhaps you’ll understand if you open your mind to what’s really going on,” I said. “What’re the other rituals?”
“They are much alike. There is a binding that will then bind us as a whole.”
“I thought I’d already be linked to you all with that first one?”
“That is slightly different. We need a piece of you, so we are physically linked, each one of us to you, and then we need to be spiritually bound as a community.”
That made absolutely no sense. But then what did here?
“Right. Lots of chanting, cleansing and binding.”
She smiled, and it looked a lot like mine. She may look like my mum, but she certainly wasn’t. “Ritual one that will take place tomorrow will be in the lake. But don’t worry, the water is clean.”
She was murdering me in seven days time but thought I’d worry about a little dirty water.
I was speechless for a second before replying a sarcastic, “Great.”
“You will be dressed in a white gown and stand in the middle of the lake. It is not too deep, perhaps waist height on you. Donald and I will bless you and then we will leave. For ten minutes, we will stand near the lake and say a few words.”
“Where will I be?”
“In the water still. To be cleansed you need to be alone, we don’t want to contaminate the blessed area by staying. You are the key to everything, Scarlett. We don’t want to get in the way of your light.”
Then let me go.
“What time are you doing this cleansing?”
“Tomorrow at noon. The water should have warmed up a little.”
I found myself almost thanking her, but fortunately I caught myself. I had nothing to thank her for. I turned away, not being able to look at her anymore.
Scarlett
THE MORE I knew about them, the more terrified I became. There wasn’t going to be any getting through to them. They genuinely believe all the crap about my ‘crossing over’ and ‘opening the door’ for all of our eternal life. In-bloody-sane.
Today marked day one of the ritual and my second full day at the commune. It was too soon for me to jump in the water and cry with happiness because I was The Light, but I also didn’t want to put up too much fight.
I was told to wear one of my white gowns; they hung to the left of the wardrobe. Not giving a crap what I wore, I ripped the first white one off the hanger and threw it on. Tonight was the first ‘ritual’. We were going to be joined or some rubbish like that. We weren’t going to be joined; I was just going to be terrified while they did whatever they felt they had to. Then I’d die.
“Are you ready?” Bethan asked.
The last time I spoke to her she was offering me cake in her kitchen. I straightened my back and stared at the traitorous bitch. How could she have had me over at her house so many times knowing what was going to happen?
“Yes,” I replied sharply.
“Don’t look afraid, Scarlett, this is just the beginning.”
Yeah, that was what I was afraid of.
“Can’t wait,” I said sarcastically.
Smiling, she reached up and placed a headband made from daisies on my head. I almost asked the significance of it, but then I realised I didn’t care.
Fiona and Donald walked me out of their house and towards the lake. The rest of them followed. I didn’t falter one step as we walked past the houses and stopped in front of the water.
“The Light has returned,” Donald said. “She and she alone will lead us into eternal peace and harmony. We will become at one with nature. We accept The Light as our salvation. Cleanse her and let her lead.”
Fiona took my arm and walked me into the water. My bare toes slipped beneath the cool surface, and I wanted to bolt. Donald’s words were insane. This was all insane. Fiona took another step forwards and extended her arm, making me go it alone the rest of the way.