“And if it doesn’t? What happened anyway? Were you arrested?”
“Shh,” Mum said. “We were all questioned for hours when we reported you missing, but we’re thankful that they believed us. Your father had two leaflets on Eternal Light and our stories matched, of course, so that helped. We’ve been told that no charges will be brought against us for taking you as your life was literally on the line and we were fearful of what the cult would do if we were found, which is why we never told anyone, not even you.”
“So, you won’t go to prison, and I can still live with you?”
Mum squeezed my hand again. “We’re not going to prison and there is no battle we won’t take on to have you with us.”
That wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear, but I realised it was probably the best I was going to get right now. “Okay. When will we know if I can go home with you?” I asked.
“We’re hoping in the next day or so. The doctors want to keep you here until tomorrow anyway.”
Right. After everything I’d been through and my family had been through, you’d think I’d just be allowed to go home with them. They saved my damn life it wasn’t like they’d taken me because they felt like having a daughter that day.
“Don’t worry, love, there is no way we’re not going home as a family,” she said, brushing my hair from my face.
I nodded, wishing I could be as optimistic as her. It would be cruel and wrong if they tried to split us up, but it wasn’t like things like that didn’t happen every day.
“Will you tell me about Fiona and Donald? They treated you well?”
“Yeah. Well, besides the obvious.”
Smiling sadly, she brushed my hair again. “I’m glad they weren’t cruel.” She frowned. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. How were you and Dad part of that, Mum? I don’t understand how it could have ever made sense.”
“Neither do we now. At first Eternal Light was just about living off the land. It was such a simple and beautiful way to live. We did believe that there was someone that would take us into eternal peace, much like any other God in any other religion. But then you were born, and Donald announced that you were the one. He said he could feel it the second he held you. For hundreds of years animals and humans had been offered as sacrifices, we knew that; we studied it and already celebrated the element and nature with rituals and food offerings. When Donald said about sacrificing you on your fourth birthday, we felt joy...” She cleared her throat and blinked to stop her tears falling. “We felt joy because it wasn’t the end, not for you and not for us.”
“Right.” I couldn’t dwell on that, it’d happened, and the main thing was they took me away. “How did you and Dad start questioning it?”
“We asked Donald why when you were four and not older so you could experience growing up and falling in love. He said it was because he couldn’t risk our community being found and broken up, or something happening to you. It all made sense, and we accepted it, but the more we saw you, the more unfair it seemed. We had many late night talks when Jeremy was in bed and the more we spoke, the less sense any of it made.”
“Do you know what happened to Evelyn?”
Mum gulped but wasn’t surprised that I knew about her. “No, honey, I don’t. When we settled down, we tried to find out. There were no reports of a child being found, so we assumed Eternal Light had her. She wouldn’t be in any danger if she were back with them. She wasn’t the one. She wasn’t there, huh?”
“No. They let her go” Mum gasped. “They sent her into the woods as some sort of messed up exchange. Her life for my return. How terrible is that?” My heart hurt for a little sister I didn’t even know. “Didn’t you know about that?”
Dad’s face paled. “We knew that she was born to protect you, we thought spiritually. God, how stupid we were.”
“I’m so sorry, Scarlett.” I could tell what Mum was thinking, and I guess she was right. Evelyn probably died out in the forest. But what if she didn’t? Either way, she deserved to be found. I wasn’t sure how many resources the police would put into looking for a girl that went missing twelve years ago. They would have to look. They were legally required to look, surely?
“Why haven’t they found him yet?” I asked, changing one painful conversation for another. At least I knew he was definitely still out there. For now, I had to concentrate on him. “I need to go and help look.”
“No, honey. We just got you back, and you need rest. You need to stay right here; they’ll find him,” Mum said.
“But I don’t understand why they haven’t found him. What did they do to him, Mum? I shouldn’t have gone. I should’ve stayed and helped him.”