Sugarcane

Touching Father's things seems sacreligious, but there's something irresistably tempting about it, all the same.\n\nYou creep around the side of his bed and survey his living conditions. The room is dusty, but immaculately neat. There are only two things obviously available for inspection. \n\nHis belt is laying flat on top of a chest of drawers, and there is an old book placed face down on his bedside table. \n\n[[Look at the book|book 1]]\n\n[[Look at the belt|belt 1]]

"Father is dead."\n\nYou say, softly,\n\n"Everything is different now. And everything's going to be different forever. So if you don't want to go, you don't have too."\n\nYou expect Rebecca to argue. Instead, she touches Mary's shoulder, lightly.\n\n"We're a family." She says, "And we are all free now. Whether you walk away or not, it has to be your choice."\n\nMary doesn't answer Rebecca, but she doesn't walk away either. \n\nOnce the sunset is finished, and the sky is full of stars, you get back into the car, and set off home.\n\n[[You all go home in muted silence|drivetime 1]]

You fling yourself through Father's torn door, scraping yourself bloody on the bits of stray wood jutting out from it, and the sound of Arthur's voice dies in the air. \n\nYou don't know if Arthur has seen, or only heard your escape, but you know that he knows, so your time is short.\n\nYou rush towards the tiny box room from which you have served father every day for the last few years of your life, and slam the door shut behind you, pushing your back against it moments before you feel Arthur's weight hit it from the other side. \n\n[[You scramble for the phone.|phone]]

All is dark now. \n\n[[Join the family for dinner, and go to bed.|dinbed]]\n\n[[Perhaps now you should look in on Father...|latefather]]

But he lives. \n\nThey let you go in the ambulance with him. As much so they can look at the damage to your neck as for any other reason. \n\nThe police come for you at the hospital, and you tell them as much as you can. They already have four pieces of your story, assembled from interviews with Edward, Bella, and Lizzie.\n\nThey know who you are, and the bruises on your throat speak louder than words could, about what you risked by getting your brother and sisters free. \n\nThey try to persuade you to press charges against Arthur, but you refuse, and eventually the press come to recognize him as a victim of your Father, along with the rest of your brother's and sisters. \n\nFrom the hospital, you watch news footage of Bella and Edward reunited with their real parents. \n\nOnce his wounds are healed, Arthur is taken into full time psychological care, and you are moved into a residence for vulnerable adults. You visit him often though, and out from under Father's shadow, you both work through the anger and fear that you feel for one another. \n\nFive years after Father's death, you recieve a postcard from Canada. There are ducks on the front of it, and on the back, four words are written: \n\nFrom your loving sisters,\nx\n\n\n\n\nEnding 4 of 21

You surrender yourself to the sounds of your siblings. You let your mind slip away, buffeted into ecstatic reveries.\n\nYou should be praying for Father's forgiveness, but instead, you want to laugh. You feel God's hands on you, dragging you to your feet, dragging your hands out in front of you until you plant them firmly on the door of Father's room, with a flat thudding sound. \n\nHe'll kill you. He'll beat you until there's nothing left to beat. You feel a rush of fear and temptation, then finally, understanding. \n\nThis is what God wants. \n\nYou are to be a martyr for your family.\n\nYou push open the door to Father's room, as Rebecca and Arthur fall silent behind you.\n\nThe door creaks open, and you hear a sharp intake of breath from behind you. A hand lashes out, grabbing tight on your ankle. \n\n"What are you doing?" Rebecca hisses the words behind you. The hand on your ankle is Arthur's.\n\nYou answer, as plainly and as honestly as you can:\n\n[["God is calling me."|answer]]

"I said we wait, Arthur!"\n\nYour voice is sharp and forceful, and Arthur freezes. There is one thing about you that Arthur can never challenge. Daren't challenge. Something that Father recognized from the first time he laid eyes on you. \n\nThat sometimes, God speaks through you. When he does, your voice is strong, and full of force.\n\nYou stare him down, and Arthur finally relents, sitting back in his place.\n\nBolstered by this small triumph, you finally make a decision: \n\n\n"Rebecca," you say, "Give the children some water and see them to bed."\n\n[[They are too young to keep vigil through the night with us...|vigil]]

Today, you fumble and stumble through your fortunes. God seems hesitant to commit to anything, because you are so distracted by worldly things. \n\nAfter ten hours, you press the redial button on the phone. You give your employee number to a cold, anonymous male voice that you don't recognize, and he disconnects your line for the night. \n\nIt's surreal, doing the same thing you do every night, knowing that everything is different now.\n\nYou've had time to think now. What do you want to do?\n\n[[Tell Rebecca.|tellbecca]]\n

Father is ill, and perhaps you are feeling a kind of rebellious recklessness, because you know what you're supposed to cook. You know that Father wants sausage and bacon and the children need porridge and toast, but that is not what you prepare.\n\nThere is a fat, round watermelon, squatting in the back of the refridgerator, and you carefully roll it out onto the kitchen counter.\n\nCarefully, you carve the watermelon into slices, and lay it out on the breakfast table.\n\nUpstairs, the lights in the childrens bedrooms will have flickered on by now, and your brothers and sisters will be dressing for [[breakfast.|rebelbreakfast]]

"Father?"\n\nYour voice is too loud in the total silence of the room. Even the sounds of the dining room are muted and distant. Your own breathing is loud and rattling to your ears. \n\nFather's breathing is not. \n\nIn fact, you can't hear Father breathing at all. \n\n[[You reach out to touch him.|touch]]\n\n[[There's no point.|deddad]]

It's getting dark by the time Rebecca pulls into the car park opposite the police station. The sky is a watercolour painting of reds and purples darkening into the deepest of indego at the edges. \n\nThe three of you get out of the car to watch the sky change above you, and for the first time since you can remember, you watch the stars emerge.\n\n"What if I never find them?" Mary whispers, in the growing dark, "What if they moved away? Or died? Or had another daughter while I was gone?"\n\nYou have no answers for her.\n\n"What if Father was right," She whispers, in the same awful voice that has gnawed at the back of your mind for years, "And they really didn't want me?"\n\nYou listen for the word of God, to reassure you. God says nothing, so you have to answer for yourself. \n\n[["You don't have to go."|dontgo]]\n\n[["You have to be brave."|newworld]]

You don't need to see the body. \n\nYou don't need to talk about it. \n\nYour course is set and it is set in stone. \n\nYou make breakfast. You go to work. You eat dinner together, as a family. \n\nIf a glass gets broken, or a word misspoken over grace, no punishment is administered. \n\nThings are good. \n\nLooking in Father's room might change that, so no one ever does. \n\nAnd the Family survives. \n\n\n\n\n\nEnding 1 of 21

His skin is pale as thin as paper. His mouth is hanging open, slack and dry.\n\nThere's no rise or fall in his chest. \n\n[[Reach out to touch him.|touch]]\n\n[[You don't need to touch him. You already know.|deddad]]

\n"Edward? You and Mary will accompany us today. We go to restore Bella and Lizzy to this family." \n\nYou declare. \n\n"What?" Arthur snaps, sounding outraged, "Them? Why would he risk them? Why would he trust you again? I should go with Rebecca."\n\n"Father works in mysterious ways." You say, serenely, "But his word must be our law, Arthur. Now, eat. For the day will be long and full of challenges."\n\nMary looks unhappy, but Edward looks delighted. He gobbles down his breakfast in a bubble of smug glee, and when he finishes, he practically bounces down the corridor to wait at the front door like an excitable puppy. \n\nYou give Arthur's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, before he slinks moodily into his office.\n\n[[Outside...|outside 1]]

You mumble that your morning has been fine. That everything is fine.\n\nThe voice chuckles. Your heart hammers in your chest, like you're going to be caught out in the lie. \n\n"Situation normal then, eh pet? There, you're logged in now. Don't work too hard, and I'm sure I'll speak to you tomorrow, same time, same place."\n\nYou force out a polite goodbye and hang up the phone. Now you wait. You don't think about Father, and you wait.\n\n[[The phone rings. |phonecall]]\n\n[[You feel thirsty. |thirsty]]

"Edward," You begin, "Do you remember anything about your life before you came here? Where you lived? What your parents were called? Anything?"\n\n"No." Says Edward breezily, "I'm sure I hated it. Being forced to live a life of banality and sin down among the wicked."\n\n"You didn't." Mary answers, with a cold, unhappy certainty, "You went to a big posh private school that looked like a church, and you played in the grass with the other little kids, and you loved it."\n\n"I did not! My spirit was a garden of pestilence!" Edward snaps. \n\nPart of you thinks that Edward might be right, but it's too late to turn back now. You interrupt their argument: \n\n"Are you sure about that, Mary? About the school?"\n\nShe turns from him to look at you searchingly, before replying, "That's where Father took me to find him. This big old beautiful school, full of little boys in fancy uniforms."\n\n"St. Jude's." Rebecca mutters beside you, and eases the car out of the driveway. \n\n"What does this have to do with Lizzy and Bella?" Mary asks, still staring at you piercingly.\n\n[[Tell them why.|realplan 1]]\n\n[[Lie to them.|lieplan 1]]

The minutes tick into hours. Morning fades into noon, into evening. \n\nYour joints begin to ache. Your mouth goes dry, and your teeth grit. \n\nBelle, who is generally presumed to be six years old, begins to cry. Gasping, ugly, toddler crying, and Rebecca, the oldest of your sisters, tries desperately to meet your eyes. \n\nNo one speaks though. No one moves to comfort Belle, and because she is a good girl, she doesn't expect comfort.\n\nThe watermelon slices sit, like fat, bloody grins, laughing at you from the table before you. A reminder of your crime. Of your impertinence. \n\nAre you being forced to wait in punishment? Or is it worse than that? (You imagine him, laying still and cold in bed. Imagine that the last thing you did to your father was to insult him as you have.)\n\nBed time is approaching. The children must be taken care of, but for once, you feel at a loss as to what to do. You feel lost in the wilderness. \n\nBeside you, Arthur gets to his feet\n\n[[Such indiscipline!|indiscipline]] \n\n[[Let him go.|arthur]]

You rap smartly on Father's bedroom door. The sound of the knock is dull and close, and your knuckles sting from cracking them against the wood.\n\nYou drop your hand and wait, but again, Father makes no sound. \n\nDread begins to well in the pit of your stomach. You can picture him now. Sitting silently in his favourite chair. Waiting for you to invade his bedroom uninvited. \n\nTesting you.\n\nAlready formulating the punishments for your failure.\n\nBut breakfast is still going uneaten. Father is silent, and you're beginning to feel worried...\n\n[[...So you open the door|rebelinvade]] \n\n[[...But you steel yourself, and return to the dining table|rebelfinalwait]]

Outside, Rebecca has herded Mary and Edward into the car. She gives you a weary look, before opening the passenger side door to let you in. Leaning back in your seat hurts\n\nInside the car, Edward is peppering Mary with questions, while she sits in tense silence. \n\n"Do you think Father will punish them for leaving? Do you think--"\n\n"He won't punish them." You say, interrupting, "The error was mine."\n\n"He will." Says Mary, miserably.\n\n"He should." Says Edward, gleefully.\n\nThis is going to be awkward.\n\n[[Ask Mary if she remembers where Father took Edward from.|Ask Lisa 1]]\n\n[[Ask Edward what he remembers from before he joined the Family.|Ask Ed 1]]

You pull free of Arthur's grip, and step forward, into the perfect darkness of Father's room.\n\n"Father?"\n\nYour voice is too loud in the total silence. Your own breathing is loud and rattling to your ears. Behind you, you can hear Arthur and Rebecca scrambling to their feet. \n\nYou can hear God's voice in your head, louder than thunder.\n\nWhat you do not hear, is the sound of your Father's breathing. \n\n[[And God says, let there be light.|lettherebe]]

Rebecca pulls the car over to the side of the road, and you scramble out of it, just as the woman sets off again, walking away from you. \n\nShe turns down a side alley, and - terrified of losing her, you scoop Bella into your arms, from the back seat of the car, and give chase.\n\nBella throws her little arms around your neck, and you clutch her like a stolen treasure as you sprint to the side alley where the woman has just disappeared. You reach the mouth of it just in time to see the woman, silhouetted, about to emerge from the other side. \n\nThrowing caution to the wind, you call out after her: \n\n"Mrs. Fielding!"\n\nYou scuttle forward down the allyway, as the orange haired woman stops.\n\nShe turns to look at you, her expression mild and searching.\n\n"I bed your pardon young man, but do I know you?"\n\nBella twists around in your arms, and you see Mrs Fielding freeze. See hope and grief and recognition and doubt all at once. Then Mrs. Fielding takes off her glasses, and says,\n\n"Oh, dear me. I'm sorry, I get so confused lately-- You have a beautiful daughter."\n\n"She's not my daughter," you say, too quickly. You dig your hand into your pocket and pull out the newspaper clipping to hold out in front of you, "But, I do love her very much. And-- please believe that if I could have gotten her back to you any sooner, I would have."\n\nMrs Fielding stares at the clipping in your hand, then looks down at her daughter. Then she drops. Like a swooping owl, pulling Bella up into her arms as if she's afraid she'll be stolen away again. \n\n[[You turn and run.|belladelivered 2]]

As the eldest, you are allowed to sit at the right hand of your Father. \n\nRebecca, who has a dark complexion, and hair that falls in shiny brown corkscrews, sits beside you. \n\nArthur - the older of your two brothers - sits beside Rebecca, his big blue eyes drilling furiously into the tabletop. \n\nMary sits beside Arthur. The age gap between she and Arthur represents the longest period that Father ever went without growing the Family. You think that he's in his mid twenties, and you think that she's in her late teens. Her hair used to be so pale it was almost white, but years of darkness have turned it the colour of wet sand. \n\nBeside Mary sits your youngest brother, Edward. He is terrible. \n\nFinally, at the very end of the table, your two youngest sisters sit next to one another. Lizzie is just under the age of ten, full of questions that she's too clever to ask, and fiercely protective of Bella. \n\nBella is learning to be quiet. \n\nBut of course, [[you already know all of this. |rebelbreakfast]]

As Arthur's hands find their way around your throat, your survival instincts finally kick in. You reach up to grab both of his wrists to pull them away from your throat, and bring your head forward with a sharp jerk, to slam your forehead across the bridge of his nose. \n\nHe falls back with a cry of pain, and you press your advantage, shoving him back against the opposite wall. After everything he's done to you. Everything he's done to your sisters. The lives he's stolen. The lies he's told. There's been a world of sunlight and golden leaves and people and love and he cut you off from it. \n\nHe cut them off from it!\n\nYou are sick with rage.\n \n[[Hit him again!|again]]\n\n[[But none of that was Arthur's fault.|Don't!]]

You don't know what you hoped to learn from the belt. The leather is thick and black and old, and the buckle shines like burnished silver. In your mind, it's a medallion, or a morningstar.\n\nYou reach to pick it up, and it's heavy. Just like you've always known it would be heavy. Like it's a skinny black sponge, that's spent the last twentyfive years soaking up blood.\n\nThe phone is still ringing, and you hear footsteps behind you. You and are seized with an irrational fear of being caught with the belt, so you throw it down before turning to face [[Arthur.|arthurmad]]

You squirm in your seat for a few more minutes, waiting to see if the phone will ring immediately and force you to resist your bodily urges, but it doesn't.\n\nThe floorboards outside your workplace aren't creaking. And somehow, you can not sense Father's hulking presence outside the door, peering through the keyhole. Ensuring your obedience. \n\nYou feel a strange lightness. A kind of demented courage, which tempts you to ease away from the phone and the cards, and crack open the door to peer out. \n\n[[The corridor is empty.|hear]]

For the first year, you never see Arthur without a case worker present. \n\nFor the first year, you don't talk about Father with him. \n\nInstead, you talk about the news footage of Bella and Edward, being reunited with their real parents. You talk about letters that Mary writes you. You talk about Rebecca. \n\nOnce his wounds are healed, Arthur is taken into full time psychological care. Finally out from under Father's shadow, you both work through the anger and fear that you feel for one another. \n\nYou and Rebecca are offered accommodations for vulnerable adults, but you'd have to be separated to take them, so you both turn them down. Instead, you get a flat together, and support each other through thick and thin. \n\nThree years after Father's death, you recieve a letter from Mary, telling you that she's been reunited with her parents, and that the wounds that Father left between them are slowly healing. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 3 of 20

Stars begin to dance behind your eyes, and your lungs begin to ache as you try to drag air past the crushing force pressing down on your windpipe. \n\nYou still don't fight back. Because he's your brother, and because he loves you. \n\nBecause you know you've taken everything from him. \n\nYou let your eyes fall closed, and a feeling of warmth begins to flows over you. Your fingertips begin to tingle, and the sound of Arthur screaming at you begins to fade.\n\nAbruptly, the pressure on your throat is relieved. Oxygen floods your senses, and you crumple to the floor, as the hands holding you pinned to the wall pull away. \n\nArthur isn't screaming anymore. He's laying still and quiet on the floor of the corridor. Rebecca is standing over him, holding something small and sharp in one hand.\n\nShe drops it, and reaches down to pull you up to your feet. \n\n"We have to go. We have to go."\n\nArthur lies terribly still at your feet. \n\n[[Run.|run]]\n\n[[Wait.|ambulance]]

Father would have punished you harshly for your failings, but he isn't here now. \n\nYou decide to tell Arthur little of the punishment you recieve. After all, you have both known Father for so long, that you are certain Arthur's imagination with conjure something far worse thank you could convincingly tell him. \n\nYou wait in the room for two hours, then rub your eyes vigorously, to make them look raw and red, before you emerge.\n\nArthur is waiting in the corridor, and he eyes you suspiciously. \n\n"We prayed." You tell him shortly, trying to sound wounded.\n\nHe holds your gaze for a moment longer, then turns away, and makes ready for bed.\n\nYou breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that your work is safe for tonight. \n\n[[And that there will be more to do, tomorrow.|escapenumber2 1]]

You do not think the forbidden thoughts. \n\nYou think the correct thoughts, which are that Father is your Father and that he protects you from a hostile world. \n\nBut Father is dead. \n\nThis thought makes you think harder about not thinking the forbidden thoughts, but by thinking about not thinking the forbidden thoughts, you inadvertantly...\n\n[[Think the forbidden thoughts.|think]]

Everything is still, and dark, and you're tired of trying to save people. Especially now that God has finally seen fit to save you.\n\nYou drag open the curtains blocking Father's bedroom windows, and for the first time you can remember, you gaze out into the world.\n\nThe sun is beginnning to rise in the distance, but it's still dark out there. \n\nRebecca's car is gone from the driveway. \n\nFather is dead.\n\nHe's dead, and you are free. \n\nYou pick up the thick leather belt from the floor beside his bed, and swing the metal buckle hard into the glass of the window pane. \n\nThe sound it makes when it shatters is like music. \n\nYou don't know where you're going, as you push the loose glass onto the ground outside. \n\nYou don't know if you're searching for help, or hope, or salvation, but you will take anything but this place.\n\nYou climb out into an unfamiliar world, and you run blindly into the dark. You run until nothing is familiar. Until your legs seize up under you, and you can carry yourself no further. Until you are so lost that you feel certain you will never find your family again.\n\nUntil, with great relief, you decide that they will never find you.\n\n\n\n\nEnding 18 of 21

"96 Cardamom Way, Broadbrook, Cumbria, CC5 9WP!"\n\nLizzie blurts out, loud and sharp and sudden, like she's been holding the address in for all the years she's known you, and it's finally erupted out of her.\n\n"My name was Gail Goldsmith, and I lived at 96 Cardamom Way, Broadbrook, Cumbria, CC5 9WP. My mum was a lecturer and my daddy looked after us."\n\n"That's perfect!" Excitement has driven Rebecca's voice up a few octaves as well, "I've been to Cardamom Way a bunch of times! I can drive us there easily!"\n\nLizzie makes a joyful sound, wordless and incoherent and full of hope. \n\n[[Then Bella pipes up.|bellaspeaks 1]]

God has given you a way to save your Family, and you don't have the heart to turn your back on it. \n\nYou return to the locked door, take a step back, then run at it. Slamming your shoulder into it, hard. \n\nIt shakes, but doesn't break. \n\nYou try again. And again. And again. Until your shoulder aches. \n\nThe door is still unmoved.\n\n\n[[Perhaps God just wants you to save yourself?|window]]\n\n[[No. You keep trying.|door2]]

"Because," you tell them solemnly, "We aren't going to find Lizzy and Bella. We're going to take you both home."\n\nMary gasps sharply. Edward looks nonplussed.\n\n"But we just left home." He points out. \n\nYou don't correct him. You don't say anything. Without looking away from the road, Rebecca reaches behind herself to push down the lock on Edward's door. \n\nThen he realises.\n\nAnd suddenly the car is filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth.\n\n[[And it is terrible.|convince 1]]\n\n

You consider taking this to Arthur, the oldest of your two brothers, but you quickly dismiss the idea. \n\nYou love Arthur, but if Father chose you to be a servant of God, he chose Arthur to inherit the kingdom of glory.\n\nAnd Arthur knows it.\n\nHe has all the same tense authority as Father, but none of the wisdom. All the righteous anger, and none of the mercy. \n\nYou love him, but he terrifies you. \n\nNo, you simply have to wait.\n\n[[Tonight you can tell Rebecca|knowingwork]]

Ordinarily you'd turn to Rebecca in times like this, but there has never been any doubt in your mind about who Father wanted to lead the family once he was gone.\n\nYou turn towards Arthur, to find him already staring at you.\n\nHe's already weighed the situation in his mind, and even through his grief, has come to the same conclusion as you. \n\nThat this is his time.\n\n"Arthur," you say slowly, "What would you have us do?"\n\n"We must make preparations for the children." He says, his voice hazy and distant, "It's what Father would have wanted."\n\n"What Father would have wanted," Rebecca interjects irreverantly, "Would be for us all to pile in the ground with him and pull the dirt on over ourselves."\n\n"Don't disrespect him!" Arthur snaps at her, "Not now!"\n\nBut Rebecca is alight and will not be silenced. \n\n"What are you talking about? Now is the perfect time to disrespect him!" She laughs again, and it's light and bright and more joyfull than anything you've ever heard, "He's dead!"\n\nThen louder.\n\n"He's dead!"\n\nThen shouting, loud enough to rouse your brothers and sisters. Loud enough to raise the dead.\n\n"He's fucking dead! And if you want to stay locked away to honour his evil old soul then you can, but I am not! And I'm not going to let you keep those fucking kids trapped here for another day! Not for another second if I can help it!"\n\n"You will tear this family apart!" Arthur snarls at her, before rounding on you, "But you won't be tempted, will you? You won't leave me? Together, we'll uphold his legacy?"\n\nWho answers?\n\n[[You.|stay]]\n\n[[God.|go]]

Arthur continues to stare daggers at you, but the other children keep their heads bowed in silent reverence. All of one mind. Waiting for Father to come for his breakfast. \n\nThis is a test. \n\n(Father has been so ill lately.)\n\nA test of your loyalty. \n\n(His head drooped, as you prayed with him last night.)\n\nA test of your obedience. \n\n(He leaned so heavily on your arm, as you helped him to his bed.)\n\nA test of your spiritual fortitude, resisting against your physical hunger. \n\n(And in his hour of weakness, you tried to feed him this filth...)\n\nYou wait until eight o'clock, and your heart is like a lump in your throat. Every second you expect the door to open...\n\n[[...You can stand it no more!|rebelseekfather]]\n\n[[...But you will not fail him|rebelfinalwait]]\n

"We can't just abandon him." You decide, "He's family." \n\nMary doesn't look happy about your decision, but Rebecca nods, and you complete the car journey in silence. \n\n\n\n\nThe house seems smaller than before somehow. No lights shine through the gaps of the curtains. It's like the whole world has taken a breath, and what remains is an empty husk. \n\nMary opts to wait in the car, and you enter ahead of Rebecca. The corridors are all dark.\n\n[["Arthur?"|callout 1]]\n\n[["Hello?"|hello 1]]

After ten hours, you press the redial button on the phone. You give your employee number to a cold, anonymous male voice that you don't recognize, and he disconnects your line for the night. \n\nIt's surreal, doing the same thing you do every night, knowing that everything is different now.\n\nYou've had time to think now. Your course is clear.\n\n[[Tell Rebecca.|tellbecca]]\n\n

Rebecca is laughing. Outrage and joy surge together in your chest.\n\nArthur is mumbling, grief stricken, about what you must do now. About what Father would have wanted. Rebecca stops him before he can start. \n\n"What Father would have wanted," she interjects irreverantly, "Would be for us all to pile in the ground with him and pull the dirt on over ourselves."\n\n"Don't disrespect him!" Arthur stutters, almost pleading, "Not now!"\n\nBut Rebecca is alight and will not be silenced. \n\n"What are you talking about? Now is the perfect time to disrespect him!" She laughs again, and it's light and bright and more joyfull than anything you've ever heard, "He's dead!"\n\nThen louder.\n\n"He's dead!"\n\nThen shouting, loud enough to rouse your brothers and sisters. Loud enough to raise the dead.\n\n"He's fucking dead! And if you want to stay locked away to honour his evil old soul then you can, but I am not! And I'm not going to let you keep those fucking kids trapped here for another day! Not for another second if I can help it!"\n\nShe reaches for your hand, still grinning, and grabs it tightly.\n\n"You agree, don't you? You're coming with me?"\n\nWho answers?\n\n[[You.|stay]]\n\n[[God.|go]]

But apparently God finds your current indecision to be beneath his glorious notice, or perhaps he is punishing you for your insolence. Either way, strain as you might, you do not hear his voice. \n\nPerhaps he'll speak later. \n\nIn the mean time, you decide to...\n\n[[Cook his real breakfast|apologybreakfast]]\n\n[[Wait|rebelwait]]\n\n[[Seek Father|rebelseekfather]]\n\n[[Say Grace and Eat|fatherisill]]

"Father-- He's gone. Gone to be with his Father." You say, as gently as you can.\n\n"No." Arthur's voice starts off soft, but it grows with every word, into a faltering hoarse cry of anguish in the dark, "No, no, no, for he is the light of the world who cannot die! He is the redeemer! You-- You're lying to me!"\n\nHe lunges forward in the dark, and for a terrifying moment you think he's going to attack you. \n\nThen you think of Rebecca behind you, and your mind scrambles for an answer. Will fighting back only anger him further, and give him cause to lash out at her once he's done? Or if you show no resistance, will his anger exhaust himself on you, as Father's had so often done.\n\nAll you know is that you can't let him hurt her. \n\n[[Square off against him.|squareoff]]\n\n[[Show no resistance.|golimp]]

"Mary, you were with Father when he chose Edward, weren't you?"\n\nMary stares dully at you from the back seat.\n\n"I remember how, if that's what you're asking."\n\n"It's not" You promise, "What I wanted to ask was-- do you remember anything about where Father took him from?" \n\nHer forehead creases, and the first hints of confusion begin to blossom across Mary's expression.\n\n"Why does that matter? How will that help us get Bella and Lizzie back?"\n\n"Do you remember?"\n\n"Sort of." She reveals, finally, "It was a big old school. The building looked like a church, and it had these big playing fields on it. He was playing football."\n\n"I hated it." Edward interjects.\n\n"He didn't." Mary corrects, quietly. "Look, why does this matter?"\n\n[[Tell them why.|realplan 1]]\n\n[[Lie to them.|lieplan 1]]

You pick up the thick black belt from where you left it before. It's heavy and cold in your hands. \n\n[[You swear to never feel it's bite again.|dootdodoot]]\n\n[[You know what Father would do, if he were still alive.|one more time]]\n

You meet Arthur head on, catching him with both hands, and blocking his route to Rebecca. He lets out a howl of grief and anguish, and he grabs at your clothes to try and force you aside. You don't let him though. \n\nYou can't let him. \n\nBecause you're the eldest, and have to protect your little sister. \n\nIt's the part of you that comes from before Rebecca. Before Arthur. Before god.\n\nA memory swims to the surface of your thoughts, as you tangle your hands into Arthur's shirt and bring him down to the floor with you. \n\nIn the memory, Father is leaning over a shabby pink baby stroller, parked outside a post office, surrounded by golden leaves.\n\nOnly in the memory, you know he isn't your Father.\n\nAnd in the memory, you protect your little sister.\n\nYou give her the life she deserves, even if it means you never see her again. \n\nOn the floor under you, Arthur finally goes limp. He doesn't let go of you, but he stops trying to fight.\n\n"He can't be dead. He can't be. I have to get to him."\n\nArthur has turned to pleading with you.\n\n[["What are we without him?"|family 1]]

You decide to look at the book. The belt is familiar enough already. \n\nPicking up the book, you find that it isn't a bible or a diary, but more mystifyingly, it is a photo album. You flick idly through a few pages of complete strangers, whose sweet faces are faded with time.\n\nYou don't find anything useful, however, until you get to the final page. There, you notice the edge of a piece of newsprint, barely visible from where it has been pushed down behind the photograph. \n\nWith forefinger and thumb, you tug it out gently, and are shocked to find yourself face to face with a large, colour photograph of your youngest sister, Bella. \n\nYou unfold it to read the headline:\n\nDESPERATE MUM PLEADS: "HELP FIND MY FIONA!" \n\n\n[[Look at the belt.|belt1 1]] \n\n[[This is too much. You have to tell Rebecca...|rebeccawork]]

There is a tiny voice, in the very back of your mind, screaming that it wasn't Arthur's fault. That you should know it wasn't Arthur's fault.\n\nBut Father made Arthur in his own image, and it's his voice that you can hear. Drowing out your own. Drowning out God's. Screaming and screaming and driving you on to keep fighting, blind with rage and fear\n\nShoved hard against the wall, you hit Arthur again, and again, and again. Your eyes are burning, and your face is wet, and you can feel him going limp under your fists. \n\nYou keep hitting him until you know - until it's impossible not to know - that all your blows are landing on is meat and bone. \n\nUntil every part of your brother is gone.\n\nAnd suddenly you can't breathe.\n\nRebecca drags you away from him. As soon as you're out of the house and within sight of Mary, she's out of the car and there to hold you up. She practically manhandles you into the back seat with her, while you cry and cry and cry for what you've done. \n\nRebecca drives into the night, while you clutch Mary's hands and choke on your own sick, agonizing guilt.\n\n[[As if you can expell it with raw hatred.|end 7 1]]

The world is big, and beautiful, and kinder than you ever could have known. You, Rebecca, and Mary always have each other.\n\nYou make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. Mary wants to work, even though neither of you ever make her, so you teach her how to read the cards. How to commune with God.\n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nBella and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families. Eventually they lead police to your old house, but Arthur, and Father, are both long gone by the time they arrive.\n\nYou settle into a new city, a new routine, a new life. \n\nIn it's own way, your family survives.\n\n\n\n\n\nEnding 8 of 21\n

The engine hums warmly, as Rebecca takes the car back onto the wide, busy road that brought you to the police station. The vibrations of being in side the car are still unfamiliar, but there's something soothing about them. You could fall asleep here. \n\n"What are we going to tell Arthur?"\n\nRebecca asks.\n\n"I don't know," you say, "I think we have to tell him the truth now."\n\n"We don't have to go back at all." She observes, her tone carefully neutral, "He'll be angry..."\n\nHe will be angry. He's always angry. If you never went home, he could never find you. After a day or two, his faith would fail him. He'd find Father. It would be too late for him to stop you. \n\n\n[[But you couldn't do that to him.|tellarthur 2]]\n\n[[And perhaps he deserves it.|gofree]]

"If a man have a stubborn and rebellious child, which will not obey the voice of his father and will not hearken unto him, Then shall his father lay hold on him, and bring him out before God and unto the gate of his place;\n\nAnd he shall say unto God, "This my child is stubborn and rebellious, they will not obey my voice; they are a glutton, and a drunkard.\n\nAnd all of the child's brother's and sisters shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all other children shall hear, [[and fear."|Start]]

You think a number of forbidden thoughts, in an order not of your choosing. \n\nThe first forbidden thought you think, is that your Family is a very strange kind of family. By some definitions, it's not a family at all. \n\nThe second forbidden thought you think, is that your Father was a very specific kind of father. Like the shadow of the ghost of a man imitating a God.\n\nThe third forbidden thought is that perhaps there are still other fathers out there, somewhere. Waiting for the return of your little brothers and sisters. \n\nAnd the final, most forbidden thought of all, is that perhaps now that Father is dead, your family could go back to their real families. \n\n\nFather was always very clear about why he chose you and your siblings. He plucked you from sin. From families who didn't deserve you. He was the tenth plague of Egypt. He was God demanding the sacrifice of Isaac, over and over, in secret and in silence. He had saved you from parents who were incapable of love. Your family saved each other. \n\nAnd Father never lied. \n\nBut God whispers, in the back of your mind, that the families had grieved. \n\nThis is - you decide, with a sudden swell of clarity - too much for you to deal with alone. Judging by the shadows at the window, your eldest sister will still be out at work right now, but your course is set. As soon as she's home...\n\n[[...You have to talk to Rebecca about this.|tellbecca 1]]

Rebecca floors it, and the car peels away from the school with a shriek of tyres. Edward recovers himself, and begins to run after you, still wailing about brimstone and punishment.\n\nIt only takes a second for the woman to intercept him though, seizing him by the shoulder and pulling him back as she stares after you in unbridled disgust.\n\nYou love all of your brothers and sisters, but Edward was going through an awkward patch. This was definitely for the best. \n\n[[That done, you turn your attention to Mary.|Lisa 1]]

You rap smartly on Father's bedroom door. The sound of the knock is dull and close, and your knuckles sting from cracking them against the wood.\n\nYou drop your hand and wait, but again, Father makes no sound. \n\nDread begins to well in the pit of your stomach. You can picture him now. Sitting silently in his favourite chair. Waiting for you to invade his bedroom uninvited. \n\nTesting you.\n\nAlready formulating the punishments for your failure.\n\nBut breakfast is still going uneaten. Father is silent, and you're beginning to feel worried...\n\n[[...So you open the door|invade]]\n\n[[...But you make a decision, and return to the dining table|fatherisill]]

From off, up the corridor, the phone in your office rings.\n\nYou make no move to answer it. \n\nSo it rings, and rings, and rings, like an alarm through the dark corridors. Until Edward pushes open his office door to check in on you. Until Lisa is drawn away from her teaching. \n\nUntil both of them come looking for you, where you sit, serene, at Father's bedside.\n\n"What are you doing here?" Edward snaps, but you hold up a hand to silence him, and the words choke in his throat.\n\nBecause the gesture isn't yours. It's borrowed from Father. Inherited, now.\n\n[["God called me." |godcalled]]\n

With Bella delivered, Rebecca starts driving, heading for the address that you have for Lizzie. \n\nIn the back seat, Lizzie begins talking excitedly about her parents (our parents, she calls them.) and her home, and her dog, and all the things she'll do once she's free. \n\nYou look out the window. Now that your eyes have adjusted to the light, you want to take in as much as you can of the world, as fast as you can. You pass dozens, maybe hundreds of houses, and people, and the streets are covered in a blanket of brown and gold. Faded memories play through your mind, of kicking up sheets of crumpled leaves to make way for a stroller behind you. Triumphantly charting a path for someone small and helpless and unfathomably dear to you.\n\nThen the engine slows, and the car comes to a stop, in the middle of a quiet, residential street.\n\nBehind you, Lizzie whispers frantically, "I can see it! I can see it!" \n\n"How do we do this?" Asks Rebecca, sounding hesitant.\n\n[["We can't go with her."|delivered 2]]

No one ever screams in Father's house. It has never been safe to scream in Father's house. But Edward is screaming and the car is too small and you're all four of you trapped in a big metal coffin with a scream and God is in your head whispering this is hell.\n\nThis is your punishment.\n\n"I won't go! You can't make me go! I'm telling Arthur! I'm telling Father! I'll never go!"\n\nImpressively, Rebecca manages to get the car all the way to the school with him still wailing like a banshee in the back seat.\n\n"You need to do something with him." She says urgently, "People will be able to hear the screaming from outside."\n\n[[You need to get him out of the car!|unloved dog 1]]\n\n[[Perhaps there's another way...|chicken 1]]

You watch Arthur rise as if in a dream. He walks away from the table, and down the dark corridor to Father's bedroom.\n\nHe walks with a steady confidence, and you feel the balance of power shift through the house. Feel Rebeccas gaze shift off you, and towards him. You stay at the table, no longer waiting for Father, but for the brother who has stepped forward, to lead you into an uncertain future. \n\nA few minutes later, Arthur returns, his face is like stone.\n\n[[He gestures for you to follow him|followarthur]]

"You must be brave." You tell her, slowly, "The divine powers of this world have a plan for you, but you will not emerge from it unchanged. If you are brave, and compassionate, and true, you will know a happiness like none you have ever experienced before."\n\nShe hangs up, still sobbing.\n\nYou put down the phone, and wait to take the next call.\n\nAnd the next. \n\n[[And the next|andthenext]]

"You want to see somewhere I go, in between jobs, that Father doesn't know about?" Rebecca asks Mary and Edward.\n\n"Yes." Says Mary.\n\n"No." Says Edward.\n\nRebecca goes there anyway, and drives out of the residential area, out onto a wide busy road. There are no trees or leaves here. In the distance, you can see warehouses, and you're about to ask Rebecca how this could possibly be better than ducks, when you see what it is she's driving towards, rising up in the distance.\n\nEven in your haziest memories of before Father, you remember seeing this place as forbidden fruit.\n\nTwo vast golden arches tower over the warehouses, glowing in all of their red and yellow glory. You never got to go here.\n\nRebecca drives up a long, curved road towards it, and you pass signs, bearing magnificent images of foods which defy all imagining.\n\n"So what does everyone want?" Rebecca asks, and you get your own answer in before either Mary or Edward can reply.\n\n[["Happy Meal!"|McDonalds 1]]

How do you break this gently?\n\nYou honestly have no idea.\n\n"Try to be calm, Arthur." You tell him, "We can explain, it's just... it's complicated."\n\nYou can see his distress morphing into rage, slow and inevitable as a brewing storm.\n\n"How can you tell me to be calm? I don't want your explanations, I want my family back!"\n\nHis face is red and contorted by the time he finishes, and your heart is thick in your throat. You can see Father in his face, and the sight of him, risen from the dead like a demon, to squirm fat and vile under Arthur's skin, roots your feet to the floor, leaving you helpless to do anything but watch...\n\n[[...As he lunges towards you.|Fight]]

You press your ear to the door, and listen closely.\n\nFather is silent as the grave.\n\n[[Knock at the door|rebelknock]]

"You want to see somewhere I go, in between jobs, that Father doesn't know about?" Rebecca asks Mary and Edward.\n\n"Yes." Says Mary.\n\n"No." Says Edward.\n\nRebecca goes there anyway, and drives out of the residential area, out onto a wide busy road. There are no trees or leaves here. In the distance, you can see warehouses, and you're about to ask Rebecca how this could possibly be better than Ducks, when you see what it is she's driving towards, rising up in the distance.\n\nEven in your haziest memories of before Father, you remember seeing this place as forbidden fruit.\n\nTwo vast golden arches tower over the warehouses, glowing in all of their red and yellow glory. You never got to go here.\n\nRebecca drives up a long, curved road towards it, and you pass signs, bearing magnificent images of foods which defy all imagining.\n\n"So what does everyone want?" Rebecca asks, and you get your own answer in before either Mary or Edward can reply.\n\n[["Happy Meal!"|McDonalds]]

Rebecca turns to face you, her eyes shiny and bright, even in the gloom. \n\n"Halle-Fucking-Luia!"\n\n"You shouldn't say fucking." You tell her.\n\n"Ding-dong the witch is fucking dead!"\n\n"Father wasn't a witch." You protest.\n\n"You know what this means, don't you? This means we're free!"\n\nYou open your mouth, waiting for some protest to come naturally to you. \n\nBut then you have to close your mouth, because nothing comes. Because you don't want anything to come. \n\nYour sister throws her arms around you, laughing, even as you feel the wetness of her cheeks pressed against your own. You hug her back tightly as she laughs, and sobs, and shakes. \n\nUntil finally, she asks, \n\n"What the hell do we do now?"\n\n"I've been thinking about it, and-- I thought perhaps before we tell Arthur, we should think about getting the children back home, somehow."\n\n"Home?" She repeats, as if in a daze. \n\n"To their old homes. Their real homes." \n\nShe pushes away from you, and you see her nodding, through the gloom. Her giddy delight fleeing into lazer focus. You have a duty to your little brothers and sisters, and you both know it. \n\nTheir needs come before your own. Their futures are more important than your future.\n\n"Tomorrow morning. We'll tell Arthur that Father's ill, and that he bade us grow the family. We'll say he wants us to prove that we can prosper without him."\n\n"We should move as soon as we can." You add, "We might be able to say that Father's ill for a few days, but not forever. Remember Isaac?"\n\nRebecca flinches. Neither of you want to remember Isaac.\n\n"We'll take Lizzie first." Rebecca decides "She still talks about her old parents sometimes. There's a chance that she'll remember an address."\n\n[[Not just Lizzie!|bellaknowledge]]\n

"Be not afraid."\n\nYou tell her. You don't mumble now, because you are speaking for God. \n\n"For all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. You have drawn the Lovers, the Queen of Cups, and the King of Coins. The Queen of Cups represents the water of the womb, and the emotional heart of your family. She can be fearful and fragile, but her heart runneth over with love. The King of Coins represents a man of great steadfastness and security, and the Lovers card represents the binding of those two figures in a union decided by destiny."\n\nGod has a natural understanding of what people want to hear sometimes. \n\nShe begins to cry, and asks you why he treats her with such coldness. You turn over another card, to see her answer.\n\nThe Hanged Man.\n\n[[God thinks not.|lielie]]

"God called upon me," You tell them, smoothly "To hear our Father's last wishes, before he died."\n\nYour voice is strong, and certain. Because you're speaking for God. Just as your Father spoke for God.\n\nYou turn to look at them. Edward's expression is frozen with a mask of furious envy. Mary's is curiously still, betraying nothing. There's something in her expression that might be hope.\n\n"From now on, Edward, you will prepare the breakfast. Mary, you will have to begin communing with St. Julien."\n\n"What about the children?" Mary asks, and there's a frailty in her voice. She is clearly just as grief stricken as you at Father's passing. \n\n"I'll teach the children." You say, causing a ripple of horror to spill over her expression, "Be not afraid. Things will be different from now on." \n\nYou turn your gaze onto Edward again, and say, with emphasis:\n\n"God told me that I must be different. More merciful. We will mourn for Father, and we will continue his legacy, but I will not be him."\n\nYou will be just.\n\nYou will be gentle.\n\nYou will be a real Father.\n\nAnd you will serve fruit for breakfast.\n\n\n\n\nEnding 16 of 21

Arthur has been with Father for almost as long as you have, and while you have always been content with a life of quiet servitude, his image of himself has always been larger. \n\nGrander.\n\nAnd what that might mean for you, if you return to him now, knots into a tight ball of fear in the pit of your stomach. \n\nWhat it might mean for for your sisters.\n\n"I don't want to go back." Mary says, soft and stark beside you, "He frightens me."\n\n"I know." You say, "But he's our Brother. I just-- it's-- It's too much to think about right now. Can we just keep driving for a little longer?"\n\nRebecca nods, and you drive in meaningless loops around the city until the moon is full and fat in the sky. \n\nNone of you say it. But in those dark hours, both of you come to a decision. \n\nThe twinkling lights of the city recede behind you, as Rebecca steers the three of you away from Father. Away from Arthur. Away from the small, cramped house and the decades of pain you've suffered.\n\n[[And out into the unknown.|end 2 1]]

You unfold the newspaper article that you found in Father's room, and show it to Rebecca. She reads it with wide eyes, quietly mouthing the words as she does so. \n\n"Fiona Fielding." She says finally, "Daughter of-- Jack and Nieve Fielding."\n\nShe drags her gaze up to you, delight blossomming up over her expression, \n\n"We could find them! Jack and Nieve Fielding-- They'll be in... There are directories, telephone books, we could really find them!"\n\nShe looks back at the article, at the photo of Bella-- or, of Fiona, who gazes back with big brown eyes.\n\n"We could give them their child back."\n\nHer voice is full of wonder, and your chest feels tight.\n\n[[You spend the evening sleepwalking|sleepwalk]]

"She can come with me!"\n\nThe words burst out of Lizzie louder than you've ever heard her speak before. \n\n"96 Cardamom Way, Broadbrook, Cumbria, CC5 9WP!"\n\nShe rattles the address off frantically, like it's a mantra. Like she's a soldier who's had it drilled into her. Who's held it tightly in her mind for as long as she could. Her personal escape plan, locked away in secret until her chance emerged.\n\nShe squeezes Bella's hand, and reaches across to scrub at her little sister's tear streaked face, "You'll come with me, and my daddy'll look after you until we can find yours. I promise."\n\nBella sniffles again, and you feel a weird tightness in your chest. Since Father's death, you're swiftly getting used to your emotions tugging you hard in opposite directions, and as much as you're happy to be setting your sisters free, at the same time, you need to confront what this means.\n\n[[That after today, you'll never see either of them again.|lizhome]]

After you, Rebecca is the oldest sibling, and because Father gave her the task of working outside The House, she is easily the most worldly of your siblings. \n\nYou remember, very briefly, a time when she was your only sister. When each of you only had the other to get them through. \n\nPerhaps that's why you trust her with such fierce certainty. She'll agree with you. She'll understand what must be done. \n\nAs soon as the thought crosses your mind, however, you hear the growl of her car outside, and realise that she's leaving for work. Time must have slipped away from you, and the day is in motion already. \n\nYou briefly consider your other options. \n\n[[You could talk to the next eldest child, Arthur...|whoarthur]]\n\n[[It isn't worth the risk. You decide to attend to your daily tasks as usual, and pretend that nothing is amiss until Rebecca gets back.|knowingwork]]

You're cooking dinner when you hear the crunch of her car tyres, and you turn off the stove to dash through the house to wait eagerly at the door for her to come in.\n\nThe keys jangle and scrape in the lock for what feels like an excruciatingly long time, before the door finally opens, and Rebecca steps into the house. She sees you waiting, and her expression contorts immediately into one of concern. \n\n"What's wrong?" She says it quietly. Because you two are the oldest, and that means the bad news has to trickle down through the two of you before anyone else gets to touch it.\n\n"Father," you say in the exact same tone, hyper-aware of the risk of Arthur overhearing you, "Father wishes to see you. In his room."\n\nShe pales visibly, but sets her face like flint, and nods. You reach out to take her hand, and together you walk through the house.\n\n[[To Father's room.|showbecca]]

Even wrapped in blankets, you can feel the cold stiffness of his limbs.\n\nThe hair stands up on your neck. \n\nIt's real. \n\n[[He's dead.|youfeel]]

But the door is closed. It's quiet enough that you can hear the click, click, click of his mouse in the silence. \n\nThe bathroom is down the hall, but the urge to relieve yourself is passed.\n\n[[Father's bedroom door is still closed.|stealth]]

You return to your office in a daze. Your mind reeling with too many thoughts to even follow the elaborate stealthy measures you took on your outward journey.\n\nNo one seems to notice.\n\nWhen you're back in your office, you feel a lump building in your throat. Your eyes well with tears, and you have to clamp your hand over your mouth to keep from sobbing. \n\nThen the phone rings.\n\n[[So you push down your feelings and take the call.|endwork]]

Arthurs words ring true across the table, and you feel a shock of shame at hearing the truth in them. You glance across the table to Rebecca, the eldest of your sisters, and the person you are closest too in this world, but even she avoids your gaze.\n\nYou rise stiffly, and return to the kitchen to begin preparing Father's proper breakfast. Behind you, no one moves, and you are suddenly struck by the anxious realisation that the routine is off now. You, Rebeccah and Arthur all have jobs to attend too, and the children have chores and studies awaiting them.\n\nThe bacon sizzles in the pan, and you ponder what to do.\n\n[[Wait for Father|keepwaiting3]]\n\n[[Let them eat. You can take Father his breakfast yourself.|seekfather]]

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.\n\n"Of course I'm leaving." \n\nThe answer comes out of you before you have a chance to think about it. Before doubt or fear or any of the agonies that Father has indulged upon you have time to compromise it. \n\nThat's how you know that it's the voice of God. \n\nThe look of betrayal on Arthur's face makes your heart ache, but the Holy Spirit drives you.\n\nYou leave him alone in Father's room, and follow Rebecca out into the corridor where the children are waiting. \n\nEdward is shrieking about retribution and Heresy, and he rushes to Arthur's side as soon as the way is clear, but none of the girls share his loyalty. Mary has scooped Bella up into her arms, and her eyes glisten with tears of joy\n\nRebecca breaks open the front door, and you spill out into the dark, empty streets beyond.\n\nThe air is cold and fresh, and the future unfurls before you, as vast and unknowable as the stars that shine down from the sky.\n\nAnd you are free.\n\nAnd God is laughing. \n\nEnding 20 of 21

You don't say anything. You don't need to say anything. The children wait, heads bowed in silent reverence, waiting, all together, for Father to come for his breakfast. \n\nThis is a test. \n\n(Father has been so ill lately.)\n\nA test of your loyalty. \n\n(His head drooped, as you prayed with him last night.)\n\nA test of your obedience. \n\n(He leaned so heavily on your arm, as you helped him to his bed.)\n\nA test of your spiritual fortitude, resisting against your physical hunger. \n\nYou wait until eight o'clock, and your heart is like a lump in your throat. Every second you expect the door to open...\n\n[[...You can stand it no more!|seekfather]]\n\n[[...But you will not fail him|finalwait]]

"We're not going to force you to leave!" You blurt out, in a panic.\n\nRebecca gives you a dubious look, but Edward stops screaming.\n\n"But-- you-- said--" His words are interrupted with teary little gasps, but he isn't screaming. \n\n"I know what I said. But I'm not going to force you out if you don't want to go."\n\n"You should." Mary says, flatly, "If you take him back to the house he'll tell Father about all of this."\n\n"Shut up!" Yells Edward, but he doesn't try to deny it. \n\nYou twist around in your seat to stare out of the front windscreen of the car. Rebecca is driving aimlessly around the block, over and over again. \n\n"Could we take them somewhere nice?" You ask her, "If he really wants to go back, could we at least take today to do something nice for them? I think--" You can feel your voice straining, "I remember, feeding ducks once? Could we take them to feed some ducks?"\n\nRebecca glances at you, and smiles.\n\n[["We can do something better than that."|pretend]]

No. You don't give up. You think of your family, and you keep trying. \n\nOver and over again, you slam into the door, even as the sound reverberates through the house. \n\nYou can hear Arthur barking orders at your siblings to go back to bed. \n\nThat Father is punishing you.\n\nYou can still hear his muffled shouting, when finally the wood splinters. \n\n[[And you sprint through the corridors, towards the only phone in the house|office]]

"We can't go with you," You say, quiet and certain. You get out of the car, to open the back door for them.\n\nThe girls scoot themselves out, and you offer them a final piece of advice, \n\n"We'll wait until the door opens. Until we can see that you're safe, and then-- then we'll be gone. You'll have your lives back."\n\n"We won't ever see you again?" Bella asks, in the same small voice that tugs at your heart strings. You reach down to pat her head gently.\n\n"You won't need us any more. You'll take care of each other."\n\nShe nods, and with a deep breath, Lizzie takes Bella's hand again, and sets off towards one of the doors.\n\n[[Go home|homeagain]]

He speaks in the tongues of the apostles, calling out to Father for forgiveness.\n\nYou let the sound weave through your prayers, waiting for God to answer you.\n\n[[Rebecca's weeping becomes wailing.|wailing]]

You're separated from Arthur, Mary and Rebecca as soon as the police arrive. You are inspected by doctors, rigorously interviewed by men in uniform, fingerprinted, prodded, poked, and utterly terrified.\n\nIn the 24 hours following that phonecall you encounter more people than you have seen in the entirety of your life.\n\nAfter hour eight, you lose the ability to breathe. \n\nLater, a kind medic in a green jumpsuit explains the concept of a panic attack to you. After that, you're treated more gently. \n\nYou sleep in a small, private room, and the next day, you meet two women. One wears a white, billowing blouse, and the other a slate grey suit. \n\nThis is how you learn the words case workers.\n\nIt's another day before they let you see Rebecca again. \n\nIt's longer than that (although you do not count the days) before they inform you that no charges will be filed against you.\n\nMary has been placed in the care of child services.\n\n[[It's many, many weeks before you next see Arthur again.|End 6 1]]

You set aside the makings of a full english breakfast for Father, before weighing out oats for enough porridge to feed yourself and your six siblings.\n\nYou bring a pan of milk to the boil, then push the first two slices of toast down into the toaster. You get through about a loaf each meal.\n\nUpstairs, the lights in the childrens bedrooms will have flickered on by now, and your brothers and sisters will be dressing for [[breakfast.|breakfast]]

When you awake, all is dark in Father's room. Your head aches. The door is shut.\n\nYou push yourself upright, and search uselessly for the lightswitch. You find it beside the bedroom door, which you find to be locked.\n\nFather still lies, still and sullen on the bed. He hasn't risen to punish you for your insolence yet.\n\n[[Still, you feel compelled to prove your penitence.|truepenance]]\n\n[[You take the opportunity to root through father's things.|clips]]

It wasn't Arthur's fault. You know it wasn't Arthur's fault.\n\nBut Father made Arthur in his own image, and now you can't help yourself. \n\nShoved hard against the wall, you hit Arthur again, and again, and again. Your eyes are burning, and your face is wet, and you can feel him going limp under your fists. \n\nThen Rebecca grabs your hand, and all the fight goes out of you.\n\nYou leave your brother unconscious in the hallway. Rebecca returns to the car, to bring Mary back into the house.\n\n[[You use the phone in your office to call the police.|Police 2 1]]

He was your Father. His home is the only one you can remember. The family he built, became your only family. Now that he's gone, you're leaderless. For the first time in your life, your destiny has been thrust forcefully into your own hands. \n\nAnd you didn't ask for it. \n\nIt terrifies you. \n\nBut it is yours all the same. \n\n[[But it's not just your destiny.|freedom 1]]\n\n

"You need to try and remember who you were before Father took you. Before any of this." You tell them, encouragingly. \n\nThere's silence in the car. Bella and Lizzie are perfectly still, staring at you like they're waiting for a trap to spring. \n\n"It's not a test," Rebecca says, "You're not going back to that place."\n\nIt's Lizzie who speaks first,\n\n"Father--" She stutters, and immediately you feel a stab of grief, "Father will be angry."\n\n"Father is no longer troubled by earthly things." You say.\n\n"He's dead." Says Rebecca, "So he can get as angry as he likes, he is never going to hurt any of us, ever again." \n\nThe words hang in the air between you, and suddenly, the car feels too small. Close and painful.\n\n[[Lizzie breaks the silence.|lizspeaks]]\n\n[[Bella breaks the silence.|bellaspeaks]]\n\n

With the dishes done, Mary will be setting up the dining room for Bible study. You sweep through the house, and interrupt her just as they're searching through deuteronomy for the desired passage. \n\n"Mary," You say, fighting to keep your voice steady, "Lizzy and Bella need to come with me and Rebecca today."\n\nMary's eyes narrow immediately, and she regards you with greatest suspicion, "Come with you where?" \n\nBella and Lizzie look up at you from their bibles, wide eyed and curious.\n\n[[It doesn't matter where. Father has commanded it.|commanded]]\n\n[[Father has instructed us to grow the family.|grow]]

You're separated from Arthur and Rebecca as soon as the police arrive. You are inspected by doctors, rigorously interviewed by men in uniform, fingerprinted, prodded, poked, and utterly terrified.\n\nIn the 24 hours following that phonecall you encounter more people than you have seen in the entirety of your life.\n\nAfter hour eight, you lose the ability to breathe. \n\nLater, a kind medic in a green jumpsuit explains the concept of a panic attack to you. After that, you're treated more gently. \n\nYou sleep in a small, private room, and the next day, you meet two women. One wears a white, billowing blouse, and the other a slate grey suit. \n\nThis is how you learn the words case workers.\n\nIt's another day before they let you see Rebecca again. \n\nIt's longer than that (although you do not count the days) before they inform you that no charges will be filed against you. \n\n[[It's many, many weeks before you next see Arthur again.|End 6]]

Outside, Rebecca has herded Mary and Edward into the car. She gives you a weary look, before opening the passenger side door to let you in. Leaning back in your seat hurts\n\nInside the car, Edward is peppering Mary with questions, while she sits in tense silence. \n\n"Do you think Father will punish them for leaving? Do you think--"\n\n"He won't punish them." You say, interrupting, "The error was mine."\n\n"He will." Says Mary, miserably.\n\n"He should." Says Edward, gleefully.\n\nThis is going to be awkward.\n\n[[Ask Mary if she remembers where Father took Edward from.|Ask Lisa]]\n\n[[Ask Edward what he remembers from before he joined the Family.|Ask Ed]]

You can't. \n\nEven if he hates you. Even if he tried to kill you. Even if he'll never, ever forgive you, you can't leave him like this. \n\nYou tell Rebecca to take Mary and get as far away as she can. Even though you can see that it's killing her, she does as you ask. \n\nOnce she's gone, you drag Arthur with you into your office, and press the fabric of his shirt down hard over the tiny red puncture wounds that Rebecca has left in his throat. With your free hand, you call an ambulance. \n\nBoth of your hands are sticky with blood, and your brother feels cold in your arms. \n\n[[But he lives.|End 5 1]]

The yellow electric bedroom light illuminates Father, where he lays still in his bed. \n\nSo still. So quiet. His face as grey as ash.\n\nCould you have stopped this, if you had intruded on his solitude sooner? If you'd come searching when he first failed to join you for breakfast? \n\nWill he blame you for it? \n\nWill god?\n\nBut no divine punishment unfolds. Instead, all you can feel...\n\n[[Is grief.|grief 1]] \n\n[[Is relief.|relief 1]]

You throw yourself into the back seat of the car, and tug it shut hard behind you. Rebecca shifts the car into gear, you start moving forward again, and that's it. \n\nYou've done it. \n\nThey're gone.\n\nYou drive in silence for a while, before Rebecca finally asks, \n\n"What are we going to tell the others?"\n\n[[What indeed.|the lie]]

Rebecca pulls the car over to the side of the road, and you scramble out of it, just as the woman sets off again, walking away from you. \n\nShe turns down a side alley, and - terrified of losing her, you scoop Bella into your arms, from the back seat of the car, and give chase.\n\nBella throws her little arms around your neck, and you clutch her like a stolen treasure as you sprint to the side alley where the woman has just disappeared. You reach the mouth of it just in time to see the woman, silhouetted, about to emerge from the other side. \n\nThrowing caution to the wind, you call out after her: \n\n"Mrs. Fielding!"\n\nYou scuttle forward down the allyway, as the orange haired woman stops.\n\nShe turns to look at you, her expression mild and searching.\n\n"I bed your pardon young man, but do I know you?"\n\nBella twists around in your arms, and you see Mrs Fielding freeze. See hope and grief and recognition and doubt all at once. Then Mrs. Fielding takes off her glasses, and says,\n\n"Oh, dear me. I'm sorry, I get so confused lately-- You have a beautiful daughter."\n\n"She's not my daughter," you say, too quickly. You dig your hand into your pocket and pull out the newspaper clipping, to hold out in front of you, "But I do love her very much. And-- please believe that if I could have gotten her back to you any sooner, I would have."\n\nMrs Fielding stares at the clipping in your hand, then looks down at her daughter. Then she drops. Like a swooping owl, pulling Bella up into her arms as if she's afraid she'll be stolen away again. \n\n[[You turn and run.|belladelivered]]

"Father? It's me. I'm going to come in now..."\n\nYour voice trembles, and your hand is shaking as you touch the doorknob to Father's room. This is wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. He's testing you. He'll be angry. He'll hurt you for this.\n\nYou grip the doorknob tightly, trying to force the tremor out of your hand as you twist it. The door swings open, and a soft light breaks into the coridor.\n\nThe first rays of dawn shine through your father's curtains, casting golden light into the room. You keep your eyes down, as you always do, and shuffle through the few short steps that take you to Father's bedside.\n\nHe is still in his bed. His eyes are closed.\n\n[["Father...?"|sayname]]\n\n[[Look closer|looklook]]

As Arthur's hands find their way around your throat, your survival instincts finally kick in. You reach up to grab both of his wrists to pull them away from your throat, and bring your head forward with a sharp jerk, to slam your forehead across the bridge of his nose. \n\n\nHe falls back with a cry of pain, and you press your advantage, shoving him back against the opposite wall. After everything he's done to you. Everything he's done to your sisters. The lives he's stolen. The lies he's told. There's been a world of sunlight and golden leaves and people and love and he cut you off from it. \n\nHe cut them off from it!\n\nYou are sick with rage.\n \n[[Hit him again!|again]]\n\n[[But none of that was Arthur's fault.|Don't!]]

"We can't go with you," You say, quiet and certain. You get out of the car, to open the back door for Lizzie.\n\nShe scoots herself out, and you offer her a final piece of advice, \n\n"We'll wait until the door opens. Until we can see that you're safe, and then-- then we'll be gone. You'll have your life back."\n\n"And I won't ever see you again?" Lizzie asks, chewing her lip hesitantly. You reach down to pat her head.\n\n"You won't need us any more. You'll have a real family."\n\nShe nods, and with a deep breath, she sets off towards one of the doors.\n\n[[Go home|homeagain 2]]

She enters the room ahead of you, and you push the door shut behind you, putting your weight against it. There's no golden sunlight cascading into the room now. Just a faint, electric orange glow from the streetlights outside, where they bleed through the fabric of Father's curtains. \n\n"Father?" \n\nThe uncertainty in her voice echos your own from earlier, and you feel a stab of guilt for not telling her immediately.\n\n"I'm sorry," You say, from behind you, "I couldn't tell you out there. If Arthur finds out--"\n\n"If Arthur finds out what?" She asks, irritation and fear mingling in her voice, but she keeps it low. Her gaze has fallen to where father is laying, still in his bed.\n\n"Ha--" You almost can't choke the words out, "Halleluia. For he is risen."\n\nShe takes another step forward. Then another. \n\nShe reaches out to touch Father's body, then jerks her hand back, with a short gasp.\n\n"He's cold." She says, voice tight and disbelieving. Her breathing is heavy and ragged, and slowly, silhouetted against the orange light of the streetlamps, you see her shoulders begin to shake. \n\nAnd then you realise why. \n\n[[She's laughing.|beclaugh]]

You don't need to be told twice. You take Rebecca's hand, and run, coughing and stumbling, over Arthur's limp body. Out of the house. \n\nYour hand fumbles on the car door, but you get it open and practically throw yourself in. Rebecca is already in the driver's seat, and she tears away from the house as fast as she can.\n\nFinally, when she's away from the house. The street. The sight of anything that you might recognize, you find your voice again,\n\n"Thank you."\n\nRebecca only nods in reply.\n\nThe twinkling lights of the city recede behind you, as Rebecca steers you both away from Father. Away from Arthur. Away from the small, cramped house and the decades of pain you've suffered, and out into the unknown.\n\n[[And out into the unknown.|end 2]]

The world is big, and beautiful, and kinder than you ever could have known. You and Rebecca always have each other.\n\nYou make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. \n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nBella, and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families. Eventually they lead police to your old house, but Arthur, and Father, are both long gone by the time they arrive.\n\nYou never find out what became of Mary.\n\nTen years after Father's death, Lizzie writes a book about her childhood. \n\nShe comes to do a signing of it in a bookshop in the city where you've settled with Rebecca. You go and watch her from the audience, but if she sees you, if she recognizes either one of you, it never shows. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 14 of 21\n

You think a number of forbidden thoughts, in an order not of your choosing. \n\nThe first forbidden thought you think, is that your Family is a very strange kind of family. By some definitions, it's not a family at all. \n\nThe second forbidden thought you think, is that your Father was a very specific kind of father. Like the shadow of the ghost of a man imitating a God.\n\nThe third forbidden thought is that perhaps there are still other fathers out there, somewhere. Waiting for the return of your little brothers and sisters. \n\nAnd the final, most forbidden thought of all, is that perhaps now that Father is dead, your family could go back to their real families. \n\n\nFather was always very clear about why he chose you and your siblings. He plucked you from sin. From families who didn't deserve you. He was the tenth plague of Egypt. He was God demanding the sacrifice of Isaac, over and over, in secret and in silence. He had saved you from parents who were incapable of love. Your family saved each other. \n\nAnd Father never lied. \n\nBut what if the other families had grieved? \n\nLike you should be grieving. \n\nInstead, you decide...\n\n[[You have to tell Rebecca!|tellrebecca]]\n\n[[To search Father's things.|rummagerummage 1]]\n\n[[To pretend nothing happened. You need time to think.|knowingwork]]

Arthur never says goodbye to Father. \n\nHe doesn't let go of your hand, even as Rebecca retrieves the last of her tools, and loads them back into the car. The three of you drive out of the city that night, determined to stay together, no matter what. \n\nYou make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. Arthur cooks, cleans, and reads.\n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nBella, and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families. \n\nFor Mary, it takes longer. Two years after Father's death, you return to your hotel room to find Arthur beside himself with excitement. A daytime talk show has tracked down her parents, and she was reunited with them live on air. \n\nThey hug, and they cry, and it hurts, but they're happy. \n\nAnd so are you. \n\nEnding 13 of 21

You monster.\n\nHe was your Father. His home is the only one you can remember. The family he built, became your only family. Now that he's gone, you're leaderless. It is as if the edges of your entire universe are crumbling around you and there's nothing that you can do to stop them. The pillars that hold up the sky are disintegrating around you and the vast unknown is crashing down onto you.\n\nAnd you are giddy.\n\nYou are sick with fear.\n\nYou are free.\n\n[[And not just you...|earlyfreedom]]

The world is big, and beautiful, and kinder than you ever could have known. You and Rebecca always have each other.\n\nYou make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. \n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nBella, and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families. Eventually they lead police to your old house, but Arthur, and Father, are both long gone by the time they arrive.\n\nYou never find out what became of Mary.\n\nYou carry what you did to Arthur, in the darkest recesses of your heart, for the rest of your life. You lie awake at night thinking of him. Sometimes, you strain to hear his voice in the silence. Sometimes you do.\n\nRebecca tells you that God would forgive you for what you did.\n\nGod says otherwise. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 9 of 21\n

You ignore the phone, and keep searching.\n\nPicking up the book, you find that it isn't a bible or a diary, but more mystifyingly, it is a photo album. You flick idly through a few pages of complete strangers, whose sweet faces are faded with time.\n\nYou don't find anything useful, however, until you get to the final page. There, you notice the edge of a piece of newsprint, barely visible from where it has been pushed down behind the photograph. \n\nWith forefinger and thumb, you tug it out gently, and are shocked to find yourself face to face with a large, colour photograph of your youngest sister, Bella. \n\nYou unfold it to read the headline:\n\nDESPERATE MUM PLEADS: "HELP FIND MY FIONA!"\n\nYou hear footsteps behind you, and you quickly fold the paper over and shove it down into your pocket as you turn to face [[Arthur.|arthurmad]]

You keep searching.\n\nPicking up the book, you find that it isn't a bible or a diary, but more mystifyingly, it is a photo album. You flick idly through a few pages of complete strangers, whose sweet faces are faded with time.\n\nYou don't find anything useful, however, until you get to the final page. There, you notice the edge of a piece of newsprint, barely visible from where it has been pushed down behind the photograph. \n\nWith forefinger and thumb, you tug it out gently, and are shocked to find yourself face to face with a large, colour photograph of your youngest sister, Bella. \n\nYou unfold it to read the headline:\n\nDESPERATE MUM PLEADS: "HELP FIND MY FIONA!"\n\n[[This is too much. You have to tell Rebecca...|rebeccawork]]

"Arthur?"\n\nYou call, feeling your way down the dark corridor to the dining room. The light clicks on in answer to your question, and you can see your brother waiting there for you. Behind him, the table is laid, but there's no food cooking.\n\n"Why would you call out for me, and not for him?" Arthur asks you, sounding pained, "How sick is he?" \n\n[[Tell him the truth.|hard 1]]\n\n[[Try to break it to him gently.|soft 1]]

You want to apologise. You really do. But somehow the words stick in your throat. \n\nInstead, what you feel bubbling up inside you, as you stare at the body of your father, is glee.\n\nIn your defence, you do not laugh. This is apparently not enough for Arthur, judging by the sharp pain in the back of your head that follows your silence. \n\n[[Your world swims into darkness.|darkness]]\n\n

You're separated from Arthur and Rebecca as soon as the police arrive. You are inspected by doctors, rigorously interviewed by men in uniform, fingerprinted, prodded, poked, and utterly terrified.\n\nIn the 24 hours following that phonecall you encounter more people than you have seen in the entirety of your life.\n\nAfter hour eight, you lose the ability to breathe. \n\nLater, a kind medic in a green jumpsuit explains the concept of a panic attack to you. After that, you're treated more gently. \n\nYou sleep in a small, private room, and the next day, you meet two women. One wears a white, billowing blouse, and the other a slate grey suit. \n\nThis is how you learn the words case workers.\n\nIt's another day before they let you see Rebecca again. Another day after that, before they let you see Arthur. \n\nIt's longer than that (although you do not count the days) before they inform you that no charges will be filed against you. \n\n[[That's when they let you see Mary.|End 4]]

The magic works. \n\nRebecca buys four happy meals, and drives you to the picnic benches of a nearby park to eat them. \n\nEdward unpacks each part of his meal reverently, then nibbles through it, piece by piece. Like it'll have to last him the rest of his life. \n\nThe plastic toy that comes with his is a bird. It's wings flap, and it has large, hopeful eyes.\n\nYours comes with a happy looking frog, but you give it to Edward, and once he's finished eating, he holds both of them, like they're sacred. \n\nYou save both of your burger buns, and when the food is gone, you insist on searching for ducks to feed. Fortunately, the park has a pond, and you apportion each of your siblings half a bun each to give to them. \n\nEdward says almost nothing all day, until the morning ticks across into afternoon, and Rebecca mentions that soon, the schools will be closing for the day,\n\nOnly then, does Edward ask you if it's too late for him to change his mind.\n\nYou drive back to the school, and Edward goes this time without any urging. The field is empty now, but you watch as he walks - proudly, with his head held high, up to the large front gates, and disappears through them.\n\n[[Then, you drive away.|Lisa]]

You go limp, but instead of attacking you, Arthur shoves you aside. He drives on past you, and you feel sick with fear that he's about to attack Rebecca.\n\nBut he darts past her as well. \n\nHe moves like he's oxygen starved. Like his limbs won't obey his orders as they should, as he shambles frantically down the corridor to Father's room. \n\n[[And because he's your brother, and because you love him, you follow.|Father's Body 1]]

You creep from your office. Stretch out your legs so that your feet are pressed against the skirting of the corridor, and tiptoe, like a spider, over the bits of the floor that you know won't creak. \n\nYou slip past Edward's closed door. Edge past the toilet. Retreat from the voices of your brother's and sisters, and finally you reach Father's door.\n\n[[You have already decided to open it.|open2]]

You get back into the car, and watch as your sister reaches up for the doorbell of the house she's chosen.\n\nThe wait for the door to be answered seems to drag on for far longer than it should, before finally it creaks open. \n\nIt's a man. He's tall and willowy, with short grey hair and wire rimmed glasses. He looks surprised to see Lizzie, which makes you nervous, until his expression turns into one of raw, wounded shock. \n\nHe drops to his knees, and Lizzie flies forwards into his arms. He pulls her into a tight hug, and you can't watch anymore. \n\nRebecca has already started the engine, and you pull away, both hoping that he's too occupied with his daughter to notice you. \n\n\nYou glance up at Bella in the rear view mirror.\n\n"Hey, no tears. You're next. 23 Icecap Terrace, remember?"\n\n[[Rebecca puts the car into gear, and you pull away into motion.|bellahome 2]]

You make dinner for your brothers and sisters. \n\nYou say grace.\n\nYou tell Arthur that you spoke to Father and he's resting. \n\nYou take a plate of food to Father's room, and leave it to rot beside his corpse.\n\nYou are giddy with joy!\n\nYou can not wait until tomorrow!\n\n[[You're walking on air...|tomorrow 1]]

Arthur's words ring in your ears, and your chest tightens with discomfort. You feel an angry, gut-wrenching shame that feeds around into a kind of defiance. Arthur might be right, but it's not his place to say it aloud. He's your younger brother, and he shouldn't presume to speak back to you. \n\n"We wait for him." You say, firmly, "And when he arrives he can speak his own mind, Arthur."\n\nArthur drops into furious silence, and the atmosphere at the table is rich with tension. \n\nEight o'clock comes and goes.\n\nIf he's ill, then he might be glad of the simple breakfast you prepared, rather than his usual greasy fare...\n\n[[You could take it to him...|rebelseekfather]]\n\n[[You should keep waiting.|keepwaiting3]]

You make dinner for your brothers and sisters. \n\nYou say grace.\n\nYou tell Edward that you spoke to Father and he's resting. \n\nYou take a plate of food to Father's room, and leave it to rot beside his corpse.\n\nYou are giddy with joy!\n\nYou can not wait until tomorrow!\n\n[[You're walking on air...|tomorrow]]

You get back into the car, and watch as your sister reaches up for the doorbell of the house she's chosen.\n\nThe wait for the door to be answered seems to drag on for far longer than it should, before finally it creaks open. \n\nIt's a man. He's tall and willowy, with short grey hair and wire rimmed glasses. He looks surprised to see Lizzie, which makes you nervous, until his expression turns into one of raw, wounded shock. \n\nHe drops to his knees, and Lizzie flies forwards into his arms. He pulls her into a tight hug, and you can't watch anymore. \n\nRebecca has already started the engine, and you pull away, both hoping that he's too occupied with his daughter to notice you. \n\nYou drive in silence for a while, before Rebecca finally asks, \n\n"What are we going to tell the others?"\n\n[[What indeed.|the lie]]

The next morning, you lay out breakfast for your siblings, and take Father's plate through to his room before any of them are awake. \n\nYou wait, beside his body, and the hard, mouldering breakfast of the day before, until you can hear them taking their places at the table. Then you wait a little longer. Just to be absolutely certain that they notice your absence. \n\nThen you dump the second plate of food on top of the first, and emerge to join them. \n\n"Brothers and Sisters, Father has spoken to me," You announce, and quietly thank god for filling your stomach with the words that you need, "He didn't join us yesterday, because a grave illness has beset him. Which is why today..." You glance across the table to Rebecca, "He has bade us set out, to grow our family. So that he can be comforted by our loyalty in his hour of weakness."\n\nYour youngest Brother, Edward, who is thirteen and growing more precocious with every year recieves this news with wide and eager eyes.\n\n"Who did he say was to go? Bella's still too little--" \n\nHe trails off when he sees you shaking your head. \n\n"Bella may be young, but she's wise for her years. She and Lizzie will choose someone together. That is the word of our Father."\n\n[[And so it shall be done.|trust]]

"We have a friend who works in that school."\n\nYou lie, heart stuttering in your throat as you do so. \n\n"A friend who helped us to rescue Edward, who will now help us to redeem Bella and Lizzy."\n\nRebecca shoots you an incredulous look, and in the rear view mirror, you can see Mary frowning.\n\n"Really?" Says Edward, awestruck.\n\n"Really." You say, "Rebecca, would you happen to possibly have a pen and paper on your person?"\n\n"Check the glove box." She says, her tone betraying nothing.\n\nYou do so, and find a thin pad of lined paper, and a scratchy biro awaiting you there. \n\n"Edward," you say, thinking quickly, "I am going to ask you to take a secret message, for Father, to our friend in the school."\n\n"Ah," Says Rebecca.\n\n"Yes!" Yelps Edward, delightedly. \n\nMary says nothing. \n\n[[Tugging the lid off the pen, you begin to write...|message]]\n\n

You think of the children. What does this mean for them?\n\nYou could keep the family together if you wanted. Leave Father to his long earned rest and take his place as the patriarch of your house.\n\nIt's what he would want, but for some reason the thought of it chills you.\n\nYou don't want to leave the children Fatherless though, and if you don't step up to lead your family, then it seems unavoidable. \n\nUnless...\n\n[[Think forbidden thoughts|think]]\n\n[[Don't think forbidden thoughts|dontthink]]

The Holy Spirit is moving her to grief, burning through her veins with all the power of His love. \n\nYou let the sound weave through your prayers, waiting for God to answer you.\n\n[[Arthur's syllables fade into a long, constant wail.|wailing]]

Father is not generally a man who appreciates being disturbed when he has chosen to keep to himself, but after so long you don't think you could stomach a bite of breakfast without his watchful presence at the head of the table.\n\nYou decide not to take him fruit from the table, at the risk of invoking his wrath. Instead, you make a hot cup of tea, rich with sugar, and carry it with you like a shield.\n\nThe halls of your house are all dark. Lighting them is a waste of electricity, says Father. As you edge through them, with your overfilled mug of scalding tea, you don't even consider the possibility that this would be easier with light. It is as certain as the sunrise that the hallway is not lit, a simple fact of life.\n\nYou arrive at the door to Father's bedroom. In all of the years you've lived here, you have never been beyond it.\n\n[[Listen at the door|rebellisten]]\n\n[[Knock at the door|rebelknock]]\n\n[[Go straight in|rebelinvade]]

There are six slices of bacon, and six sausages in the refrigerator. It's not even close to being enough to feed everyone. Besides, it would be wasteful and indulgent to have bacon and sausage whenever you wanted. You'll have to wait until easter, like everyone else.\n\nTaking three pieces of bacon, and three pieces of sausage, you set them aside for Father's breakfast. For the children, you begin weighing out oats for porridge, and bring a pan of milk to the boil.\n\nUpstairs, the lights in the childrens bedrooms will have flickered on by now, and your brothers and sisters will be dressing for [[breakfast.|breakfast]]

You don't know what you hoped to learn from the belt. The leather is thick and black and old, and the buckle shines like burnished silver. In your mind, it's a medallion, or a [[morningstar.|morningstar]]\n\nYou reach to pick it up, and it's heavy. Just like you've always known it would be heavy. Like it's a skinny black sponge, that's spent the last twenty five years soaking up blood.\n\n[[This is too much. You have to tell Rebecca...|rebeccawork]]

Conway McDermott

Arthur. He's standing in the threshold of the room, staring past you at the still body of Father on the bed.\n\n"Arthur--" You begin, searching desperately for some kind of explanation you can offer him, but he doesn't wait to hear it. \n\nIn two long strides, his hands are around your throat. He shoves you back against the wall, and black orbs slam into the periphery of your field of vision. \n\nHe doesn't say anything, his face a silent mask of rage, as he crushes the air from your lungs. \n\n[[Your consciousness sinks into darkness|dark2]]

You think a number of forbidden thoughts, in an order not of your choosing. \n\nThe first forbidden thought you think, is that your Family is a very strange kind of family. By some definitions, it's not a family at all. \n\nThe second forbidden thought you think, is that your Father was a very specific kind of father. Like the shadow of the ghost of a man imitating a God.\n\nThe third forbidden thought is that perhaps there are still other fathers out there, somewhere. Waiting for the return of your little brothers and sisters. \n\nAnd the final, most forbidden thought of all, is that perhaps now that Father is dead, your Family could go back to their real families. \n\n\nFather was always very clear about why he chose you and your siblings. He plucked you from sin. From families who didn't deserve you. He was the tenth plague of Egypt. He was God demanding the sacrifice of Isaac, over and over, in secret and in silence. He saved you from parents who were incapable of love. Your family saved each other. \n\nAnd Father never lied. \n\nBut God whispers, in the back of your mind, that the families had grieved. \n\n[[Dig through Father's things.|rummagerummage]]\n\n[[Get back to your office to think|backtowork]]

"Edward," You begin, "Do you remember anything about your life before you came here? Where you lived? What your parents were called? Anything?"\n\n"No." Says Edward breezily, "I'm sure I hated it. Being forced to live a life of banality and sin down among the wicked."\n\n"You didn't." Mary answers, with a cold, unhappy certainty, "You went to a big posh private school that looked like a church, and you played in the grass with the other little kids, and you loved it."\n\n"I did not! My spirit was a garden of pestilence!" Edward snaps. \n\nPart of you thinks that Edward might be right, but it's too late to turn back now. You interrupt their argument: \n\n"Are you sure about that, Mary? About the school?"\n\nShe turns from him to look at you searchingly, before replying, "That's where Father took me to find him. This big old beautiful school, full of little boys in fancy uniforms."\n\n"St. Judes." Rebecca mutters beside you, and eases the car out of the driveway. \n\n"What does this have to do with Lizzy and Bella?" Mary asks, still staring at you piercingly.\n\n[[Tell them why.|realplan]]\n\n[[Lie to them.|lieplan]]

"I just remember what she looked like."\n\nBella's voice is small, and full of unshed tears. She scrunches her face up, as if she's thinking hard. \n\n"She had big orange hair and big round glasses and she was soft all over, and she called me Button, but I can't remember her name."\n\nShe reaches up to swipe her sleeve over her eyes, mopping up the tears that have begun to accumulate there. You feel terrorized by her sorrow, and your scramble to find the Fieldings in the telephone directory intensifies.\n\n"I don't remember anything else. I'm sorry, I'm trying-- I want to go home, but I can't-- I can't--"\n\n\n\n[["You don't have to remember!"|A Promise 1]]

A song from your childhood echoes in your head. Something that started with bells and chaos and joy, that ended with the promise of vengeance. It collides in your head with bible verses and Father's hymns, and you realise, with a cold and sudden certainty that this will change everything. \n\nYou should be excited. You should be afraid.\n\nInstead, all you can feel...\n\n[[Is grief.|earlygrief]] \n\n[[Is relief.|earlyrelief]]

Your stomach is churning with nerves as you walk the dark corridor back to Father's room. At any minute this could all fall apart, but for the moment, your ploy is working. \n\nArthur believes that the girls escaped by accident. \n\nFather's room is dark and dusty, and once the door is shut behind you, you turn on the ceiling light, which illuminates the room with a yellow glow. \n\nFather is still laying in bed. He is beginning to smell. \n\nThere isn't much to do while you are pretending to tell Father of your failings. How long should you wait? What should you tell Arthur when you emerge?\n\n[[You use your time in Father's room to construct another good lie.|dootdodoot]]\n\n[[You look at Father's belt.|secondbelt]]

"We are a family." You tell him, firmly, "No matter what happens, we'll always be family."\n\nYou feel Rebecca's hand on your back, and it's enough to make you push yourself up from the floor. You offer Arthur your hand, and he pulls himself upright. His eyes are red, and he stares down the corridor towards Father's room. \n\n"I know it's hard." You offer weakly, and he nods, slowly. \n\n"Aren't you afraid?" He asks.\n\n"Terrified." Rebecca replies for you, "But we're free. We're all free."\n\n"There might still be people waiting for you, out there somewhere." You tell him, gently, but he shakes his head. \n\n"No. I have you."\n\n[[He doesn't let go of your hand.|end 1]]

\nPardon me, Sir or Madame. \n\nSorry to bother you.\n\nI am going through a stubborn phase, and do not know what this message contains, so please be kind when you reveal it to me.\n\nI was kidnapped from this school nine years ago, and now I am being returned.\n\nMy favorite food is apples, and I answer to Edward, although it is almost certainly not my real name.\n\nI've had a very unfair life, please take good care of me, and give me apples.\n\nYour sincerely.\nEdward\n\nYou fold the paper in half. Then in half again. Then write the words TOP SECRET on the back of it.\n\nRebecca pulls up alongside a huge, elegantly constructed building. It has a clocktower, and arches, and spires that stroke the clouds. \n\n"This is it." Confirms Mary, softly.\n\nThere's a gaggle of young boys in uniforms outside the school, and a well dressed woman, with a brown bun, and glasses. You twist around to look at Edward, and hand him the piece of paper.\n\n"That woman over there is our ally. She'll bring back Lizzie and Bella." You tell him, pressing the note into his hand, "This message is for her eyes only. I know it's hard to understand, but you must see this mission as a test of your faith. One which shall be rewarded."\n\nEdward's eyes glow with pride.\n\n[[He is burdened with glorious purpose.|cheeseit 1]]

You get back into the car, and watch as your sisters reach up for the doorbell of the house they've chosen.\n\nThe wait for the door to be answered seems to drag on for far longer than it should, before finally it creaks open. \n\nIt's a man. He's tall and willowy, with short grey hair and wire rimmed glasses. He looks surprised to see them, which makes you nervous, until his expression turns into one of raw, wounded shock. \n\nHe drops to his knees, and Lizzie pushes Bella in front of herself, forcing him to accept her first. He pulls both of them into a tight hug, and you can't watch anymore. \n\nRebecca has already started the engine, and you pull away, both hoping that he's too occupied with the girls to notice you. \n\nYou drive in silence for a while, before Rebecca finally asks, \n\n"What are we going to tell the others?"\n\n[[What indeed.|the lie]]

Arthur hits you like a freight train, pinning you to the wall of the corridor hard enough to crack your head against the wall, and knock the air out of you lungs. He's screaming in your face loud enough to make you dizzy. You can smell his breath, and everything hurts. \n\n"Where are my sisters? Where is my Brother? Where is my Father?"\n\nYou feel his hands twisting around your throat, and the realisation hits you that if you don't start fighting back now, you might not have the chance.\n\n[[Start fighting back.|Hit]]\n\n[[Don't fight back.|Don't hit]]

The routine is simple. You know it well.\n\nAt six am every morning, the yellow light in your room flickers on and you get out of bed. You wash. You drink a glass of water. You go downstairs to lay the table for breakfast.\n\nFather has been ill lately. Yesterday he barely touched his food, but he is the man of the house and you know that he will want a proper breakfast cooked for him. \n\nYou also know what [[the bible|bible1]] says about the terrible harvest that awaits children who defy their Father. \n\nThe kitchen wallpaper looks golden, wheter it's from grease, paint, or the single bulb illuminating the enclosed space, you do not know.\n\nYou prepare a nutritious breakfast. \n\n[[Of Sausage and Bacon.|Fullenglish]]\n\n[[Of Porridge and Toast.|Obedientfood]]\n\n[[Of Fresh Fruit.|rebellious]]

You have to force yourself not to run. Not to slam the door. Not to make too much noise or betray what you've just done, as you rush back to your office to silence the phone. \n\nYou pick it up on the third ring, and stumble uselessly through the psychic reading. \n\nJulian of Norwich looks disappointed in you, but God is a little distracted right now.\n\nWhen the call is done, and you are able to take stock of what you just did, you feel a lump building in your throat. Your eyes well with tears, and you have to clamp your hand over your mouth to keep from sobbing. \n\nThen the phone rings again.\n\n[[So you push down your feelings and take the call.|endwork]]

You think of the children. What does this mean for them?\n\nYou could keep the family together if you wanted. Leave Father to his long earned rest and take his place as the patriarch of your house.\n\nIt's what he would want, but for some reason, the thought of it chills you.\n\nYou don't want to leave the children Fatherless either, though, and if you don't step up to lead your family, then that seems unavoidable. \n\nUnless...\n\n[[Think forbidden thoughts|think 1]]\n\n[[Don't think forbidden thoughts|dontthink 1]]

After you, Rebecca is the oldest sibling, and because Father gave her the task of working outside The House, she is easily the most worldly of your number. \n\nYou remember, very briefly, a time when she was your only sister. When each of you only had the other to get them through. \n\nPerhaps that's why you trust her with such fierce certainty. She'll agree with you. She'll understand what must be done. \n\nYou put down Father's untouched breakfast, and return to the corridor. Your siblings appear to have left breakfast uneaten, and are now going to their daily chores. You see Arthur retire sourly to his tiny office, and Rebecca pulling on her coat.\n\nYou move to her side and touch her arm, and she looks up at you, expression contorting immediately into one of concern. \n\n"What's wrong?" She says it quietly. Because you two are the oldest, and that means the bad news has to trickle down through the two of you before anyone else gets to touch it.\n\n"Father," you say, in the exact same tone, "Father has been called home. To play on the harp of gold, in paradise."\n\n"He's-- you can't mean?"\n\n"In paradise. Rebecca, I'm certain."\n\nShe stares at you in silence for a moment, then takes half a step backwards, then slumps, limply against the wall.\n\n"What are we going to do?"\n\n"I thought... perhaps we could take some of the children home." She looks blank for a moment, so you add, "I mean, back to their old homes."\n\n"Their real homes." She breathes, awestruck, then her expression turns serious, "Does Arthur know?"\n\nYou shake your head, and she nods, her weariness shifting into something else. Into strategising. \n\n"Good. If he finds out before we're done--"\n\nShe trails off, so you finish for her,\n\n"Letting them go'll be hard enough without having to deal with his temper."\n\nShe nods wordlessly, staring into space, still clearly deep in thought. \n\n"We should take Lizzie first. She still talks about her old parents sometimes, so she might remember an address, or a school or something that can help us."\n\n"We should move as soon as we can." You add, "We might be able to say that Father's ill for a few days, but not forever. Remember Isaac?"\n\nRebecca flinches. Neither of you want to remember Isaac.\n\n"We need to do this now. If Arthur finds him today then we'll have missed our chance."\n\nShe's right. Even though the thought makes your blood turn cold. But if you really are only going to get one shot at this...\n\n[[Then you have to get Bella out as well.|bellatoo]]\n

With this said, you usher the children out of the dining room. Behind you, you can hear Mary fumbling to organise her usual bible study with just Edward sitting sullenly in front of her. \n\nAs Lizzie and Bella walk in silence towards the front door, you can't help but notice their footsteps speeding up when they see the flood of white, natural light gradiating down the corridor from where the front door stands open.\n\nLizzie reaches back to take Bella's hand, and as you come closer to the light - close enough for your eyes to sting from the sight of it - they start running. \n\nBella is laughing. You don't remember the last time you heard Bella laughing, and even though you have to close your eyes to block out some of the light, you can feel the sides of your mouth tugging up into a grin that you can't contain. \n\nYou reach out to touch the wall, feeling your way through until your hand reaches the doorframe. You can hear Rebecca talking to the girls, opening the car door and getting them situated.\n\nThen you feel her hand on your shoulder, and you force open your eyes against the sting of the light.\n\n"There you are," She says, and she tugs you forward out of the house, "I know this is overwhelming, but you need to stay with us."\n\nThis is the light of the world.\n\n"I don't know where we go from here. I can drive the car, but you need to plot the course."\n\nWith your eyes watering, and the sights and scents of the outside world mercilessly bombarding you, you make a decision. \n\n[[You need to talk to Bella and Lizzie.|Bellamem]] \n

The morning light is bright enough to glow through the drawn curtains, illuminating Father, where he lays still in his bed. \n\nSo still. So quiet. His face as grey as ash.\n\nCould you have stopped this, if you had intruded on his solitude sooner? If you'd come searching when he first failed to join you for breakfast? \n\nWill he blame you for it? \n\nWill God?\n\nBut no divine punishment unfolds. Instead, all you can feel...\n\n[[Is grief.|grief]] \n\n[[Is relief.|relief]]

The next morning, you lay out breakfast for your siblings, and take Father's plate through to his room before any of them are awake. \n\nYou wait, beside his body, and the hard, mouldering breakfast of the day before, until you can hear them taking their places at the table. Then you wait a little longer. Just to be absolutely certain that they notice your absence. \n\nThen you dump the second plate of food on top of the first, and emerge to join them. \n\n"Brothers and Sisters, Father has spoken to me," You announce, and quietly thank god for filling your stomach with the words that you need, "He didn't join us yesterday, because a grave illness has beset him. Which is why today..." You glance across the table to Rebecca, "He has bade us set out, to grow our family. So that he can be comforted by our loyalty in his hour of weakness."\n\nYour youngest Brother, Edward, who is thirteen and growing more precocious with every year recieves this news with wide and eager eyes.\n\n"Who did he say was to go? Bella's still too little--" \n\nHe trails off when he sees you shaking your head. \n\n"Bella may be young, but she's wise for her years."\n\n[["She and Lizzie will choose someone together."|trust 1]]

You don't know what you hoped to learn from the belt. The leather is thick and black and old, and the buckle shines like burnished silver. In your mind, it's a medallion, or a morningstar.\n\nYou reach to pick it up, and it's heavy. Just like you've always known it would be heavy. Like it's a skinny black sponge, that's spent the last twentyfive years soaking up blood.\n\nThe phone in your office starts ringing. If you don't get back there and answer it, there's going to be trouble. \n\n[[Get back to your office|getthephone]]\n\n[[Look at the book|book1]]

You have to force yourself not to run. Not to slam the door. Not to make too much noise or betray what you've been up too as you rush back to your office to silence the phone. \n\nYou pick it up on the third ring, and stumble uselessly through the psychic reading. \n\nJulian of Norwich looks disappointed in you, but God is a little distracted right now.\n\nWhen the call is done, and you are able to take stock of what you just did, you feel a lump building in your throat. Your eyes well with tears, and you have to clamp your hand over your mouth to keep from sobbing. \n\nThen the phone rings again.\n\n[[So you push down your feelings and take the call.|endwork 1]]

"I'm sorry." You say, although you can't hear your own voice over the screaming.\n\nYou get out of the car, and walk around to Edward's door. Rebecca reaches back to unlock it, and then you're reaching in to grab your wailing, scratching little brother from the back seat. \n\n"Hated is he who forsakes the will of the Lord!" Edward shrieks. \n\nThe children playing on the field of the school have taken notice of the noise, and they've begun to cluster around the fence, watching you drag Edward from the car.\n\n"Honor thy Father! Honor thy Father!"\n\nThere's a tall, well dressed woman walking across the field to investigate the commotion. As Edward continues to scream, she picks up her pace, until she's running towards you both.\n\n"You're going to hell! Father's going to send you to hell for this!"\n\nAs the woman reaches the school gate, you finally prise Edward free and fling him away from the car. He staggers back, and you scramble into the back seat that you've just forced him out of, slamming the door behind you.\n\n[["Drive!"|Drive]]

"We have to take Bella as well." You say, with absolute certainty. Rebecca looks less sure.\n\n"Take her where? It's not like she's going to remember her parents."\n\n"I don't know. It doesn't matter. She's so young Rebecca, if we can get her out now..."\n\nYour hands are shaking. You don't know why. Your mind flutters to a sky blue nursery, with fluffy white clouds painted on the ceiling. A pile of stuffed toys in the corner, yellow ducks dangling over a white crib. There's the distant, but absolute certainty of a mother somewhere, to love the child in the crib unconditionally.\n\nYou think of daylight.\n\nAnd you think of all the things your littlest sister deserves, and all the things you'd do to ensure she gets them.\n\n"All I know is that it's not too late for her."\n\nRebecca stares at you for a beat, then nods. \n\n"She deserves the chance of a normal life. Tomorrow morning, we'll find a way to make this work."\n\n[[You spend the evening sleepwalking|sleepwalk 1]]

After five hours, Lizzie comes to give you a glass of water and a bowl of boiled potatoes.\n\n[[You eat them while waiting for the next call|until]]

As your brothers and sisters file in, to take their [[allocated places|allocated.]], the melon is met with a mixture of curiosity, wonder, and disapproval. Mary, who cries frequently, thrums with quiet excitement at the prospect of fruit for breakfast. Arthur becomes a knot of angry tension, glaring across the dining table at you.\n\nYou all wait, in silence, for Father. No one moves. No one speaks. Everyone knows that the breakfast is wrong.\n\nFather doesn't come.\n\nSeven am comes and goes, and at quarter past the hour, Arthur finally speaks, accusingly:\n\n"He's waiting for you to cook his real breakfast for him."\n\nBut Arthur is hardly an authority on such things. In times of such indecision, you turn to the divine for guidance, as the bible instructs you to. You close your eyes, and [[strain to hear the voice of God.|god2]]

The next morning, you rise early, and are careful to prepare Father's correct breakfast. \n\nYou put out the food for him and the children, but again, as the minutes tick away, he does not emerge. \n\n[[No more excuses. You go looking for him.|latefather]]\n\n[[But the schedule says it's time for you to work again...|gotowork2]]

You creep from your office. Stretch out your legs so that your feet are pressed against the skirting of the corridor, and tiptoe, like a spider, over the bits of the floor that you know won't creak. \n\nYou slip past Arthur's closed door. Edge past the toilet. Retreat from the voices of your brothers and sisters, and finally you reach Father's door.\n\n[[You have already decided to open it.|open]]

\n"Edward? You and Mary will accompany us as we go out to restore Bella and Lizzy to this family." \n\nYou declare. \n\n"What?" Arthur snaps, sounding outraged, "Them? Why would he risk them? Why would he trust you again! I should go with Rebecca."\n\n"Father works in mysterious ways." You say, serenely, "But his word must be our law, Arthur. Now, eat. For the day will be long and full of challenges."\n\nMary looks unhappy, but Edward looks delighted. He wolfs down his breakfast in a bubble of smug glee, and when he finishes, he practically bounces down the corridor to wait at the front door like an excitable puppy. \n\nYou give Arthur's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, before he slinks moodily into his office.\n\n[[Outside...|outside]]

\n"Be not afraid." \n\nYou tell her. You don't mumble now, because you are speaking for God. You are, however, speaking for God a little more quickly than usual.\n\n"For all will be will, and all manner of things will be well. I can sense an aura of white light glowing around you, and a silver thread is leading out of it, stretching out to bind your beloved to you. The spirits tell me that your fears are unfounded, and that you and he will be very happy together." \n\nYou glance at Julian of Norwich, but she seems fine with you referring to the voice of God (which is clearly what you're channelling here) as, "the spirits".\n\nYou dismiss the rest of the caller's complaints, and wrap up the call.\n\nAnd now, you should really wait to take the next call.\n\nAnd the next.\n\n[[And the next. |andthenext]]\n\n[[But you're beginning to need a wee. |wee]]

You press your ear to the door, and listen closely. \n\nFather is silent as the grave.\n\n[[Knock at the door|knock]]\n\n[[Open the door|invade]]

"Okay," you say to Rebecca, "I understand."\n\nRebecca squeezes your shoulder, and opens the passenger side door of the car for you to get in, before walking around to get into the driver's side.\n\nYou slip into the seat, and pull the door shut behind you with both hands. The car is small and warm and comfortable. Like you imagine a submarine would be like. The seat seems to fit your body perfectly, like you think a coffin would be like.\n\nAll of the excitement has given Bella the hiccoughs, and Lizzie is frantically trying to shush her, in case the noisyness is taken for misbehaviour and they have to go back to the house. \n\n"Girls?"\n\nThey both immediately fall silent at the sound of your voice. You twist around in your chair, to address them both directly.\n\n"You aren't going back to that house. Not for being noisy, not for being naughty, not ever." \n\nLizzie puts up her hand, and you nod to her, giving her permission to speak. \n\n"Where are we going?"\n\n"Home," you say, tugging open the glove compartment, to retrieve the phone book crammed inside it, "Your real homes. But you need to help us out, if you can, and think very very hard..."\n\n[["...About who you used to be."|lizmem 1]]

When you reach the threshold of Father's room, the smell hits you. It's cloying and sickly. Not strong enough to have reached the corridor yet, but growing every day.\n\nArthur's standing over days worth of discarded breakfasts, posture stiff and unyeilding. \n\nFather is still laying in bed. He looks peaceful in the dark, and you silently pray that Arthur doesn't ask you to turn on the light. \n\n"It's true." Arthur says, slowly, "He's really gone."\n\nHe turns to you.\n\n"Why didn't you tell me?"\n\nWhy didn't you?\n\n[[Because God said not too.|godsed]]\n\n[[Because you were afraid of what he'd do.|fraidofarthur]]

"Okay," you say to Rebecca, "I know what to do."\n\nRebecca squeezes your shoulder, and opens the passenger side door of the car for you to get in, before walking around to get into the driver's side.\n\nYou slip into the seat, and pull the door shut behind you with both hands. The car is small and warm and comfortable. Like you imagine a submarine would be like. The seat seems to fit your body perfectly, like you think a coffin would be like.\n\nAll of the excitement has given Bella the hiccoughs, and Lizzie is frantically trying to shush her in case the noisyness is taken for misbehaviour and they have to go back to the house. \n\n"Girls?"\n\nThey both immediately fall silent at the sound of your voice. You twist around in your chair, to address them both directly.\n\n"You aren't going back to that house. Not for being noisy, not for being naughty, not ever." \n\nLizzie puts up her hand, and you nod to her, giving her permission to speak. \n\n"Where are we going?"\n\n"Well," You say, contemplatively, "That depends on the two of you. Lizzie, Bella, we need to you think very, very hard..."\n\n[["...About who you used to be."|lizmem]]

"Icecap Terrace," You repeat, before glancing back to Bella, "That's where your other family lives now. So keep an eye out the window, and look out for anything you recognize."\n\nBella climbs up onto her seat, pressing her little paws against the car window, to stare frantically out as Rebecca drives.\n\nAs you go, you can't help but feel a tremble of nervousness in the pit of your stomach. What if Bella's parents aren't home? What if they aren't kind? What if you've got the wrong address after all?\n\nThese are the thoughts haunting you, when in the back seat, Bella begins to squeal:\n\n"I can see her! I can see her! She's there!"\n\nYou aren't at Icecap Terrace quite yet, but when you turn to press your face to the window, there is indeed a woman with bright orange hair, and big square glasses, lingering outside one of the shops on the road that you're currently on.\n\nThe odds of it being the right person are pretty remote. Fortunately, Father never taught any of you anything about basic statistics. \n\n[[So you direct Rebecca to stop the car.|outtacar 2]]

You return to your office. \n\nYou log on. You Look to Saint Julian of Norwich. You speak for God.\n\nThen, in the evening you eat dinner with your family. \n\nYou are less and less surprised by Father's continued absence at the table. \n\n[[Next Day|THIRDDAY]]

"We have to take Bella as well." You say, with absolute certainty. Rebecca looks less sure.\n\n"Take her where? It's not like she's going to remember her parents."\n\n"I don't know. It doesn't matter. She's so young Rebecca, if we can get her out now..."\n\nYour hands are shaking. You don't know why. Your mind flutters to a sky blue nursery, with fluffy white clouds painted on the ceiling. A pile of stuffed toys in the corner, yellow ducks dangling over a white crib. There's the distant, but absolute certainty of a mother somewhere, to love the child in the crib unconditionally.\n\nYou think of daylight.\n\nAnd you think of all the things your littlest sister deserves, and all the things you'd do to ensure she gets them.\n\n"All I know is that it's not too late for her."\n\nRebecca stares at you for a beat, then nods. \n\n[["Go pick them up. I'll start the car."|grabbella]]

"I don't know," you say, weakly, "I didn't know what you'd do-- I wanted to get the children out. I wanted them to have a chance of a normal life, and I didn't know if you'd allow that."\n\n"We both felt the same way," Says Rebecca, from behind you, "We decided not to tell you together, so if you're angry, be angry at us both."\n\nArthur nods, with a strange placidity. As if to say he understands. He takes a few steps forward, before sinking down to sit on the edge of Father's bed.\n\n"You were probably right. I would have done anything to keep my Family together."\n\n"We aren't yours." Rebecca snaps, from behind you, "Just like we weren't his."\n\nArthur nods again, still eerily calm. He stretches his body out on the bed beside Father.\n\n"Leave us." He says, softly, from the folds of the blankets, "You've done what you came to do, now leave."\n\nYou want to disobey him. You don't want to leave your brother, here, in the dark, huddled against the cold and rotting body of that monster.\n\nBut Rebecca grabs your hand, and pulls you back. Out. Away.\n\n[[And once you're out, you can't look back.|End 3 1]]

For the rest of the car journey, you plan your performance immaculately. \n\nRebecca bursts into the house first, voice strained with false grief.\n"I have to tell him. This is my fault, I was the one driving--"\n\nYou cut her off, slamming the door behind you to make absolutely sure that your remaining siblings are paying attention.\n\n"You drove well. You did everything Father asked of you, I should have been watching. It was my responsibility--"\n\n"How can it be your responsibility? You haven't left the house since we chose Arthur, how could you have known--"\n\n"Because I'm the oldest! I'm supposed to protect you!" You let a little thunder into your voice, as you burst into the dining room together. \n\nYour three younger siblings are frozen in place. Edward - who was laying the table - is clutching a stack of plates to his chest like they'll protect him from some invisible horror that entered with you both. Mary stands by the stove, biting her lip so hard that it's turning white. \n\nArthur is sitting at the dining table, his face pale and drawn, staring at you both in horror.\n\n"Where are they?" He asks, breathlessly.\n\n"I am going to protect you." You tell Rebecca, ignoring Arthur. \n\n"I asked you where our sisters are?" Arthur explodes, and suddenly he's up out of his seat and snatching at your clothes to drag you towards him.\n\n\n[[You answer him.|youansw]]

Arthur hits you like a freight train, pinning you to the wall of the corridor hard enough to crack your head against the wall, and knock the air out of you lungs. He's screaming in your face loud enough to make you dizzy. You can smell his breath, and everything hurts. \n\n"Where are my sisters? Where is my brother? Where is my Father?"\n\nYou feel his hands twisting around your throat, and the realisation hits you that if you don't start fighting back now, you might not have the chance.\n\n[[Start fighting back.|Hit 1]]\n\n[[Don't fight back.|Don't hit 1]]

As Arthur's hands find their way around your throat, your survival instincts finally kick in. You reach up to grab both of his wrists to pull them away from your throat, and bring your head forward with a sharp jerk, to slam your forehead across the bridge of his nose. \n\n\nHe falls back with a cry of pain, and you press your advantage, shoving him back against the opposite wall. After everything he's done to you. Everything he's done to your sisters. The lives he's stolen. The lies he's told. There's been a world of sunlight and golden leaves and people and love and he cut you off from it. \n\nHe cut them off from it!\n\nYou are sick with rage.\n \n[[Hit him again!|again 1]]\n\n[[But none of that was Arthur's fault.|Don't! 1]]

"You have to be brave," You tell her, "I know-- I know it's scary. Every single thing about this is terrifying. We are all of us spiralling of into the darkness and splitting apart, and-- and we're betraying him, and if we are wrong then we won't only suffer in this life, but we'll suffer for eternity in the next."\n\nYour fears are like a swarm of ants, crawling up the inside of your throat and spilling over to taint your sister's future. You push the next words out at force, to make sure she hears them. \n\n"But if he was wrong-- if he was wrong, then there is a world out there. A great, kind world, that God created for you. For all of us. Where people who love you are waiting." \n\n"But you don't know." Mary whispers, fiercely, "You can't know."\n\n"Yes I can." You say, even though you can't really, "Because I've known you for twelve years, and you are impossible not to love."\n\n"Father said--"\n\n"Father lied!"\n\nFor a moment, you think that God is speaking through you again, but he isn't.\n\nThe words are your own. \n\nRebecca and Mary are both staring at you through the twilight, but you can't back down now.\n\n"He lied," you repeat, "They loved you. Now go take your life back."\n\nMary nods, and finally she sets off across the road, alone. You and Rebecca watch her until she's inside the station.\n\n[[Before getting back into the car.|drivetime]]

He was your Father. His home is the only one you can remember. The Family he built became your only family. Now that he's gone, you're leaderless. For the first time in your life, your destiny has been thrust forcefully into your own hands. \n\nAnd you didn't ask for it. \n\nIt terrifies you. \n\nBut it is yours all the same. \n\n[[Your Family will still need a patriarch...|resolve]]\n\n[[But it is not just your destiny.|freedom]]\n\n

You yank the handset of the phone towards your ear, and pull the scrunched up newspaper article from your pocket. \n\nYou have only ever dialed one number on this phone, to call into your job every day. You almost don't expect it to work, when you begin punching in the numbers written on the article. \n\nFrom the other side of the door, you can hear Arthur screaming at you. Hammering wildly at the door, even as a crisp female voice greets you from over the line.\n\n"Broadbrook Police Department, how can I help you?"\n\nArthur bellows through the door, and you can hear someone weeping, and someone laughing, and someone screaming in the distance. \n\nBut the voice of God is loud in your mind, and he speaks through you like the sound of trumpets.\n\nAnd the walls of Jericho fall around you. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 15 of 21

Arthur has been with Father for almost as long as you have, and while you have always been content with a life of quiet servitude, his image of himself has always been larger. \n\nGrander.\n\nAnd what that might mean for you, if you return to him now, knots into a tight ball of fear in the pit of your stomach. \n\nWhat it might mean for Rebecca.\n\n"I don't know." You say, "I don't know, it's-- It's too much to think about right now. Can we just keep driving for a little longer?"\n\nRebecca nods, and you drive in meaningless loops around the city until the moon is full and fat in the sky. \n\nNeither of you say it. But in those dark hours, both of you come to a decision. \n\nThe twinkling lights of the city recede behind you, as Rebecca steers you both away from Father. Away from Arthur. Away from the small, cramped house and the decades of pain you've suffered.\n\n[[And out into the unknown.|end 2]]

"We can't just abandon him." You decide, "He's family." \n\nLisa doesn't look happy about your decision, but Rebecca nods, and you complete the car journey in silence. \n\n\n\n\nThe house seems smaller than before somehow. No lights shine through the gaps of the curtains. It's like the whole world has taken a breath, and what remains is an empty husk. \n\nLisa opts to wait in the car, and you enter ahead of Rebecca. The corridors are all dark.\n\nThere is a sickly smell wafting through the house, and as you reach for the lights, you realise that the door to Father's bedroom is open. Immediately your mind scrambles, as you try to imagine what could have pushed Arthur to invade Father's room without permission. Did something you do give him cause for suspicion?\n\nYou only have a moment to dwell on this, before - with a sickening cry...\n\n[[Your brother lunges at you from the dark.|Fight 1]]

You can hear Mary, down the corridor, leading Edward, Lizzie, and Bella through their bible studies.\n\n[[Arthur's office is beside yours.|see]]

God Says.

With this said, you usher the children out of the dining room. Behind you, you can hear Mary fumbling to organise her usual bible study with just Edward sitting sullenly in front of her. \n\nAs Lizzie and Bella walk in silence towards the front door, you can't help but notice their footsteps speeding up, when they see the flood of white, natural light gradiating down the corridor from where the front door stands open.\n\nLizzie reaches back to take Bella's hand, and as you come closer to the light - close enough for your eyes to sting from the sight of it - they start running. \n\nBella is laughing. You don't remember the last time you heard Bella laughing, and even though you have to close your eyes to block out some of the light, you can feel the sides of your mouth tugging up into a grin that you can't contain. \n\nYou reach out to touch the wall, feeling your way through until your hand reaches the doorframe. You can hear Rebecca talking to the girls, opening the car door and getting them situated.\n\nThen you feel her hand on your shoulder, and you force open your eyes against the sting of the light.\n\n"There you are," She says, and she tugs you forward out of the house, "I know this is overwhelming, but you need to stay with us."\n\nThis is the light of the world.\n\n"There's a phone book in the glove compartment of the car," She tells you, "I have an advert in it, but there are ordinary people listed there as well. We're looking for Mr J. Fielding, or Mrs N. Fielding."\n\nWith your eyes watering, and the sights and scents of the outside world mercilessly bombarding you, you nod, fervently.\n\n[[And head for the car.|Bellamem 1]] \n

Rebecca drives you three blocks before you realise that you can't take it anymore. You call the police from an isolated payphone a few streets away. You tell them about Arthur, you tell them about Father, you tell them about Mary and Edward and Bella and Lizzie, and when they tell you to stay where you are, you hang up the phone and dart back to the car.\n\nRebecca drives for the horizon until the sun is rising. \n\nYou settle in a strange new city, and make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. \n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nThe police find Arthur the same night as you make the phonecall. He is taken into long term psychological care. Bella and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families.\n\nSeven years after Father's death, you and Rebecca are watching the television in a subletted room, when you stumble across a day time talk show where your siblings are being reunited to talk about their trauma.\n\nBella and Lizzie both insist that they're still sisters. Edward has gotten a tattoo of a duck on his wrist, and talks about how long it took for him to really accept being free. \n\nArthur says he misses you both.\n\nAnd that you saved his life. \n\nThe show ends, pleading with anyone with information on your wherabouts to call in, but neither you, Mary, or Rebecca want too. \n\nKnowing that the others are safe is enough. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 6 of 21

Arthur hits you like a freight train, pinning you to the wall of the corridor hard enough to crack your head against the wall, and knock the air out of you lungs. He's screaming in your face loud enough to make you dizzy. You can smell his breath, and everything hurts. \n\n"Where are my sisters? Where is my Brother? Where is my Father?"\n\nYou feel his hands twisting around your throat, and the realisation hits you that if you don't start fighting back now, you might not have the chance.\n\n[[Start fighting back.|Hit]]\n\n[[Don't fight back.|Don't hit]]

The world is big, and beautiful, and kinder than you ever could have known. You, Mary and Rebecca always have each other.\n\nYou make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. \n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nBella and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families. Eventually they lead police to your old house, but Arthur and Father, are both long gone by the time they arrive.\n\nYou carry what you did to Arthur, in the darkest recesses of your heart, for the rest of your life. You lie awake at night thinking of him. Sometimes, you strain to hear his voice in the silence. Sometimes you don't have to strain.\n\nRebecca tells you that God would forgive you for what you did.\n\nGod says otherwise. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 2 of 21

There is a tiny voice, in the very back of your mind, screaming that it wasn't Arthur's fault. That you should know it wasn't Arthur's fault.\n\nBut Father made Arthur in his own image, and it's his voice that you can hear. Drowing out your own. Drowning out God's. Screaming and screaming and driving you on to keep fighting, blind with rage and fear\n\nShoved hard against the wall, you hit Arthur again, and again, and again. Your eyes are burning, and your face is wet, and you can feel him going limp under your fists. \n\nYou keep hitting him until you know - until it's impossible not to know - that all your blows are landing on is meat and bone. \n\nUntil every part of your brother is gone.\n\nAnd suddenly you can't breathe.\n\nRebecca drags you away from him. Out of the house and back into the car. She practically manhandles you into the passenger seat, while you cry and cry and cry for what you've done. \n\nShe drives into the night, while you clutch your face and choke on your own sick, agonizing guilt.\n\n[[As if you can expell it just with grief.|end 7]]

"He that spareth his rod hateth his son." \n\n[["But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes."|belt1 1]]

Father won't want you to eat without him, so you wait. The minutes tick away, and at first, no one dares speak. The clock strikes half six. Then seven. If you don't begin eating you'll go off schedule soon...\n\n[[Say grace and eat|fatherisill]]\n\n[[Keep waiting|keepwait]]\n\n[[Seek Father|seekfather]]

A few hours later, Lizzie brings you a bowl of potatoes and a glass of water. You desperately try to hide your sinister knowing. \n\n[[She buys it.|afternoon 1]]

You leave the children to their daily chores, and retire down the dark corridor adjacent to the kitchen, towards your workplace.\n\nYou work from the smallest room in the house. So small, that when you are sat at the cramped desk before you, you can reach out and touch three out of the four walls. On the desk there sits a bundle of white fabric, and a landline telephone. There are numbers set into it's face, which you've never touched. \n\nOn the wall, Father has hung three icons of St. Julian of Norwich, the great Catholic Mystic, who lived in perfect isolation, and was rewarded with visions of the divine. It is a reminder that success at your job is through the providence of God, not a reflection of your own merit.\n\nWith one hand, you pick up the phone and bring it up to your cheek. You hold it between your jaw and your shoulder so you can reach down to press the auto-dial button with the same hand. With the other hand, you daintily unwrap the bundle of fabric, and take out a pack of plastic backed Tarot cards.\n\nA woman's voice with a warm Welsh accent bubbles across the phone line, to ask for your employee number.\n\n[[And you give it. |phonepsychic]]

As the school disappears in the rear view mirror of Rebecca's car, Mary finally seems to relax a little.\n\n"Lizzie and Bella," she says, with an unfamiliar lightness in her tone, "You didn't really lose them yesterday?"\n\nRebecca answers for you both:\n\n"We set them free."\n\nMary doesn't answer immediately. She stares out the car window for a long, long moment before she speaks again.\n\n"I don't know where to go. Nothing from before you took me feels real."\n\nBy the time Mary came to the Family, you were both deeply entrenched in Father's routine. His rules. You may have pushed obedience on your younger siblings for their own safety, but you can recognize that Mary has never trusted you.\n\nIn her eyes, you are as guilty of Father's actions as he was. \n\n"I'm sorry." You say, but she shakes her head.\n\n"I'm just trying to think of something. Anything. A home. A school. A name."\n\nShe swallows, and shakes her head. \n\n[[There's only one option any of you can think of.|Station 1]]

"Hello?"\n\nYou call, feeling your way down the dark corridor to the dining room. The light clicks on in answer to your question, and you can see your brother waiting there for you. Behind him, the table is laid, but there's no food cooking.\n\nAs you come closer, you can see how pale and drawn his face is. \n\n"Everything's been so quiet." He says, sounding pained. He looks past you, to Rebecca, "You're alone-- you-- you lost them?" \n\n\n[[Tell him the truth.|hard 1]]\n\n[[Try to break it softly to him.|soft 1]]

Touching Father's things seems sacreligious, but you're fairly confident that you're damned already, so you roll up your sleeves, and prepare to gorge yourself on forbidden fruit.\n\nYou creep around the side of Father's bed, and try not to make eye contact with him, as you look for secrets to explore. \n\nYou find an old photo album by he bedside, and flick idly through a few pages of complete strangers, whose sweet faces are faded with time.\n\nIt isn't until the final page that you see anything of interest. The edge of a piece of newspaper peeks up, from where it has been tucked behind one of the photographs. \n\nWith forefinger and thumb, you tug the paper out gently, and are shocked to find yourself face to face with a large, colour photograph of your youngest sister, Bella. \n\nYou unfold it to read the headline:\n\nDESPERATE MUM PLEADS: "HELP FIND MY FIONA!" \n\nYou scan the article very briefly, gaze fixing upon a phone number in the bottom corner, for anyone with more information. \n\nThe sun is rising, and the door is locked. You don't have to do anything about this article. \n\nFather is dead. Your duty is done. Your siblings can save themselves. \n\n[[Because God has given you a chance to save yourself.|window]]\n\n[[But God has given you a way to save your family.|door]]

When you reach the threshold of Father's room, the smell hits you. It's cloying and sickly. Not strong enough to have reached the corridor yet, but growing every day.\n\nArthur is standing over days worth of discarded breakfasts, posture stiff and unyeilding. \n\nFather is still laying in bed. He looks peaceful in the dark, and you silently pray that Arthur doesn't ask you to turn on the light. \n\n"It's true." Arthur says, slowly, "He's really gone."\n\nHe turns to you.\n\n"Why didn't you tell me?"\n\nWhy didn't you?\n\n[[Because God said not too.|godsed 1]]\n\n[[Because you were afraid of what he'd do.|fraidofarthur 1]]

A few hours later, Lizzie brings you a bowl of potatoes and a glass of water. You desperately try to hide your sinister knowing. \n\n[[She buys it.|afternoon]]

"Father is resting this morning." You say, smoothly and reassuringly, "He'll eat when he's ready, but he wouldn't want us to use that as an excuse to fall behind. Rebbecca, would you please say grace for us?"\n\nRebecca is the oldest girl in your family. She makes the most money, and she leaves the house to work and to buy food. If you didn't love your whole family equally, you would love Rebecca the best. She folds her hands, and begins to pray.\n\n"Abba who feeds me\nAbba who raises me\nAbba who loves me beyond all love,\nBless this family\nBless this food\nAnd I pray that we meet in the land up above\n\nAmen"\n\nThere is a chorus of Amens from your siblings, and you glance up to see Arthur, the next eldest of your brothers after you, glowing with an ugly rage. \n\nHe's angry that you dare to begin without Father being there, but what can you do? Father set the schedule, and he would not mean for the children to go hungry.\n\nBreakfast passes quietly and without incident. Belle, whose age you have generally agreed to be six years old, seems happier and calmer than you've ever known her, and once the meal is done, Lizzy allows her to 'help' with the dishes.\n\nArthur storms off to his desk to begin working, and Rebecca flicks open her diary at the morning room table, checking her daily appointments. She runs a door to door computer repair service, and is the only member of your family that regularly leaves the house. She earns more than double what you and Arthur do. For the three of you, the schedule demands that work begins now.\n\n[[And you have your own job to attend too...|work]]

It wasn't Arthur's fault. You know it wasn't Arthur's fault.\n\nBut Father made Arthur in his own image, and now you can't help yourself. \n\nShoved hard against the wall, you hit Arthur again, and again, and again. Your eyes are burning, and your face is wet, and you can feel him going limp under your fists. \n\nThen Rebecca grabs your hand, and all the fight goes out of you.\n\n[[You leave your brother unconscious in the hallway, and use the phone in your office to call the police.|Police 2]]

Your hand fumbles against the wall for the light switch in the dark, and Father's bedroom floods with sickly yellow illumination.\n\nInstinct tells you to keep your gaze down. Tells you to be respectful. \n\nBut God tells you to look.\n\nSo you look. \n\nFather is lying in his bed. His eyes are wide and staring. His skin is pale and dry, like sheets of paper stretched across too much bone.\n\nThere's no point in touching him. You can see it in the stiffness of his limbs. In the grey lines of his face. \n\nAll the great, terrible power that he weilded for so long has drained away, and what's left behind looks fragile and brittle.\n\nHalleluia, for he is risen.\n\nHe's dead. \n\nDing dong, the witch is dead.\n\nHe was your Father. His home is the only one you can remember. The family he built, became your only family. Now that he's gone, you're leaderless. For the first time in your life, your destiny has been thrust forcefully into your own hands. \n\n[[Behind you, you hear Arthur choke in mute horror.|end20]]\n\n[[Behind you, you hear Rebecca begin to laugh|end21]]

"Be not afraid." \n\nYou tell her. You don't mumble now, because you are speaking for God.\n\n"For all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. You have drawn the hermit, the heirophant and the tower. It means that though the love that you have known may be fading into twilight, it is blocking you from knowing a greater, purer love to take it's place." \n\nShe begins weeping, but you continue:\n\n"The tower tells us that what you once had is falling, and the hermit tells us that you may be alone, for a brief time, but the heirophant promises a divine light will shine upon your life."\n\nShe asks you if she can stop it from happening. If she can keep him from leaving. If she can keep the tower standing. \n\nYou turn over another card, to see.\n\n[[It is The Hanged Man|hangman]]

You feel thirsty. \n\nBut the phone rings, so you answer it quickly. \n\nThe caller is a recently made mother, concerned that her boyfriend will never marry her now that her body has been stretched and warped by childbirth. You stare desperately at Julian of Norwich for divine inspiration, before dragging your gaze down at the tarot cards, and laying some out, looking for her fortune in them. \n\n[[You draw the hermit, the heirophant, and the tower.|solitudeandruin]]\n\n[[God says the cards are wrong.|talldarkstranger]]\n\n[[You want to stretch your legs.|legs]]

Rebecca starts driving. \n\nIn the back seat, Lizzie begins talking excitedly about her parents (our parents, she calls them.) and her home, and her dog, and all the things she'll do once she's free. \n\nYou look out the window. Now that your eyes have adjusted to the light, you want to take in as much as you can of the world, as fast as you can. You pass dozens, maybe hundreds of houses, and people, and the streets are covered in a blanket of brown and gold. Faded memories play through your mind, of kicking up sheets of crumpled leaves to make way for a stroller behind you. Triumphantly charting a path for someone small and helpless and unfathomably dear to you.\n\nThen the engine slows, and the car comes to a stop, in the middle of a quiet, residential street.\n\nBehind you, Lizzie whispers frantically, "I can see it! I can see it!" \n\n"How do we do this?" Asks Rebecca, sounding hesitant.\n\n[["We can't go with her."|delivered 1]]

The next morning, you lay out breakfast for your siblings again, and take Father's plate into his room to wait for them to emerge to eat, as usual. \n\nWhen you are sure that they are all there, and confident that your absence from the table has been long enough for them to all have noticed, you dump the breakfast onto the growing pile of discarded food, and emerge to join them. \n\n"Brothers and Sisters, Father has spoken to me," You announce, and quietly thank god for filling your stomach with the words that you need, "He has given Rebecca and I a chance to make right the terrible wrong we committed yesterday." \n\n[["And he will not send us alone..."|sibrival 1]]

Rebecca starts driving. \n\nIn the back seat, Lizzie is still cheering Bella up. Talking about her parents (our parents, she calls them.) and her home, and her dog, and all the things they'll do once they're free. \n\nYou look out the window. Now that your eyes have adjusted to the light, you want to take in as much as you can of the world, as fast as you can. You pass dozens, maybe hundreds of houses, and people, and the streets are covered in a blanket of brown and gold. Faded memories play through your mind, of kicking up sheets of crumpled leaves to make way for a stroller behind you. Triumphantly charting a path for someone small and helpless and unfathomably dear to you.\n\nThen the engine slows, and the car comes to a stop, in the middle of a quiet, residential street.\n\nBehind you, Lizzie whisper's frantically, "I can see it! I can see it!" \n\n"How do we do this?" Asks Rebecca, sounding hesitant.\n\n[["We can't go with them."|delivered]]

"We can't do that." You decide, "He's family." \n\nRebecca nods, and you complete the car journey in silence. \n\n\n\n\nThe house seems smaller than before somehow. No lights shine through the gaps of the curtains. It's like the whole world has taken a breath, and what remains is an empty husk. \n\nYou enter ahead of Rebecca. The corridors are all dark.\n\nThere is a sickly smell wafting through the house, and as you reach for the lights, you realise that the door to Father's bedroom is open. Immediately your mind scrambles, as you try to imagine what could have pushed Arthur to invade Father's room without permission. Did something you do give him cause for suspicion?\n\nYou only have a moment to dwell on this, before - with a sickening cry...\n\n[[Your brother lunges at you from the dark.|Fight]]

"It is not for you to question Father's will." you tell her, sharply. To your own ears you sound angry, but in reality you just can't think of an excuse with so littly planning time. Mary looks away, like she's been slapped. \n\n"Our business is important, and he is attending to it from his own room today." You blather, hoping to sound convincing, "He is not to be disturbed under any circumstances."\n\nLizzy gets up, taking Bella's hand as she does so. Mary doesn't look at you, and although you long to apologise to her, you can't let slip what you're really doing. \n\nAs you wave Bella and Lizzy out after Rebecca, you throw one finally, remorseful glance back at Mary.\n\n"Try not to worry," you tell her, as some small consolation.\n\n[["I'd never let anyone hurt them."|trust]]

You're just finishing Father's hash browns when the children file into the morning room. They sit around the table, in seats which have been [[carefully allocated|allocated]] to them. You ease the hash browns onto his plate, and set it down at the head of the table, before taking your place at the next seat along. \n\nYou wait together for Father to join you, until a soft growl of hunger emanates from one of the children. It is ten minutes after seven. Father is late, and routine demands you say grace and eat. \n\nHe won't like it if you start without him though. Not one bit.\n\nIn times of such indecision, you turn to the divine for guidance, as the bible instructs you to. You close your eyes, and [[strain to hear the voice of God...|god1]]

You go to your office in a daze, and bar the door behind you. \n\nYou work from the smallest room in the house. So small, that when you are sat at the cramped desk before you, you can reach out and touch three out of the four walls. On the desk there sits a bundle of white fabric, and a landline telephone. There are numbers set into it's face, which you've never touched. \n\nOn the wall, Father has hung three icons of St. Julian of Norwich, the great Catholic Mystic, who lived in perfect isolation, and was rewarded with visions of the divine. It is a reminder that success at your job is through the providence of God, not a reflection of your own merit.\n\nThere's a pack of tarot cards wrapped in a scrap of black fabric beside you, and you unwrap them with one hand, as you pick up the phone to call into the telephone psychic service where you work. \n\nUsually you like your job. Usually when you detail the future for the people calling in, you can feel God's voice speaking through you.\n\n[[But today you can't focus.|focus]]

There's no point in touching him. You can see it in the stiffness of his limbs. In the grey lines of his face. \n\nAll the great, terrible power that he weilded for so long has drained away, and what's left behind looks fragile and brittle.\n\nHe's been so tired lately. He's been so frail.\n\nHe's been dying. And now he's dead. And you're standing there, holding a plate of his cold breakfast, trying to keep your breathing steady as you fight back waves of... \n\n[[Grief.|earlygrief]]\n\n[[Relief.|earlyrelief]]

"I have drawn the three of hearts for you." You say, "This means, that there is a chance of your three lives staying united, through everything that is to come. It means that a shared love for your new child, will be the force which draws him back to you."\n\nGod is fairly sure that this will work. Families stay together. Families save each other. \n\nShe thanks you, still sounding teary and troubled, and hangs up the phone. \n\nYou put down your handset as well, and wait to take the next call. \n\nAnd the next.\n\n[[And the next.|andthenext]]

"Gone." You say, meeting his rage with exhaustion.\n\nYou let the real sense of loss that you feel bleed through into your answer.\n\n"They got away. Bella-- We never thought--"\n\nYou shake your head quickly, and pull out of his grasp.\n\n"I have to tell Father. This is my failure, whatever you might think, Rebecca."\n\nArthur's hands are shaking. His expression is contorted with fury. Seeing you force yourself to be calm, however, he is able to do the same. \n\n"Yes," he says finally, "You do have to tell him."\n\nBehind Arthur, you can see Mary grinning, but you put her from your mind, and turn around.\n\n[[You return to Father's Room|hiding out]]

You watch Edward clamber proudly from the car, and walk super casually through the school gates. \n\nYou watch him until he hands the piece of paper to the woman, and watch as she unfolds it. \n\nThen, Rebecca begins to pull away.\n\nYou don't see the moment when Edward realises that you're abandoning him here. \n\nIt would be too much to bear.\n\n[[And you still have a duty to help Mary.|Lisa 1]]

Rebecca drives you three blocks before you realise that you can't take it anymore. You call the police from an isolated payphone a few streets away. You tell them about Arthur, you tell them about Father, you tell them about Mary and Edward and Bella and Lizzie, and when they tell you to stay where you are, you hang up the phone and dart back to the car.\n\nRebecca drives for the horizon until the sun is rising. \n\nYou settle in a strange new city, and make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. \n\nYou watch the stories of your siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nThe police find Arthur the same night as you make the phonecall. He is taken into long term psychological care. Bella and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families.\n\nSeven years after Father's death, you and Rebecca are watching the television in a subletted room, when you stumble across a day time talk show where your siblings are being reunited to talk about their trauma.\n\nThe same talk show reunited Mary with her family some years earlier, and the host mentions this as often as possible.\n\nBella and Lizzie both insist that they're still sisters. Edward has gotten a tattoo of a duck on his wrist, and talks about how long it took for him to really accept being free. Mary recounts, word for word, what you told her outside the police station. Her mother is holding her hand so tightly that her knuckles have turned white.\n\nArthur says he misses you both.\n\nAnd that you saved his life. \n\nThe show ends, pleading with anyone with information on your wherabouts to call in, but neither you and Rebecca want too. \n\nKnowing that the others are safe is enough. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 12 of 21

The minutes tick into hours. Morning fades into noon, into evening. \n\nYour joints begin to ache. Your mouth goes dry, and your teeth grit. \n\nBelle, who is generally presumed to be six years old, begins to cry. Gasping, ugly, toddler crying, and Rebecca, the oldest of your sisters, tries desperately to meet your eyes. \n\nNo one speaks though. No one moves to comfort Belle, and because she is a good girl, she doesn't expect comfort.\n\nEventually, you realise that bed time is approaching. \n\nFather may be testing you, (You imagine him, laying still and cold in bed. Hope and disgust collide into one another in your chest.) but your brothers and sisters must be cared for.\n\nIt's time for you to make a decision. \n\n"Rebecca," you say, finally breaking the silence that has reigned over the table, "Give the children some water and see them to bed."\n\n[[They are too young to keep vigil through the night with us...|vigil]]\n\n

"Because God told me not too."\n\nYou say, and you watch some of the tension drain out of your brother. He turns to look at Father's body one last time, heaving his gaze towards the old man, like it's a physical weight upon him. \n\nFinally, Arthur speaks: \n\n"He really... He really damaged us, didn't he? All of us?"\n\nYou can hear the hurt in Arthur's voice, and it makes you want to protest. To console him. But God speaks for you:\n\n"Yes. I just-- God just-- He wanted..."\n\n"He wanted something different for them." Arthur supplies, cutting you off, "You wanted something better for them."\n\nYou feel some of the awful, awful tightness in your chest release, and Arthur swallows, finally turning his back on Father's body.\n\n"We should tell someone. The police, or-- or someone. We can't just leave him here."\n\nRebecca goes outside to sit with Mary, while you and Arthur walk through to the tiny cramped room that used to be your office. Under the cold gaze of St. Julian of Norwich, looking down from the three icons still hanging on your wall. Arthur calls the police. \n\n[[He tells them everything.|police 1]]

For the first year, you never see Arthur without a case worker present. \n\nFor the first year, you don't talk about Father with him. \n\nInstead, you talk about the news footage of Bella and Edward, being reunited with their real parents. You talk about letters that Mary writes you. You talk about Rebecca. \n\nOnce his wounds are healed, Arthur is taken into full time psychological care. Finally out from under Father's shadow, you both work through the anger and fear that you feel for one another. \n\nYou and Rebecca are offered accommodations for vulnerable adults, but you'd have to be separated to take them, so you both turn them down. Instead, you get a flat together, and support each other through thick and thin. \n\nThree years after Father's death, you recieve a letter from Mary's real parents. In the letter, they thank you repeatedly. For keeping their daughter safe, for pushing her to look for them, and for sacrificing your own family to give theirs back to them.\n\n\n\n\nEnding 10 of 21

The phone rings, and you answer it quickly.\n\nThe caller is a recently made mother, concerned that her boyfriend will never marry her now that her body has been stretched and warped by childbirth. You stare desperately at Julian of Norwich for divine inspiration, before dragging your gaze down at the tarot cards, and laying some out, looking for her fortune in them. \n\n[[You draw the hermit, the heirophant, and the tower.|solitudeandruin]]\n\n[[God says the cards are wrong.|talldarkstranger]]

You meet Mary once a week in a big, safe room, with both of your case workers, and both of hers.\n\nFor the first few meetings, it's just the two of you, but eventually Rebecca is allowed to attend as well. Then Arthur. \n\nEvery week you talk about your memories, and your fears, and your hopes. Together, you watch the lives of your siblings - and the story of your own lives, unfold across the news media. \n\nYou get phonecalls asking for interviews, and you turn them down. One after the next after the next. \n\nAt one of your meetings, Mary announces that she won't be able to attend any longer. Her family - who, it emerges had indeed moved away after the loss of their only daughter - saw her photograph on a true crime program, and are frantic to have her back with them.\n\nArthur spends two years training to work with adult victims of abuse. Rebecca keeps fixing computers. You never really settle into work again, but you tell both of their fortunes, and you pray for them both. \n\nEventually, your case workers judge that you'll be able to survive on your own, as functioning members of society, and the three of you move out into a small apartment together. \n\nTen years after Father's death, you get a letter from Bella. She talks about her mother, and her memories, and about all the things she never would have done if not for you. \n\nShe signs it with her birth name, her real name - Fiona - and you stick the letter to the front of your refridgerator, as if she's still your little sister. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 11 of 21

But he lives. \n\nThey let you go in the ambulance with him. As much so they can look at the damage to your neck as for any other reason. \n\nThe police come for you at the hospital, and you tell them as much as you can. They already have four pieces of your story, assembled from interviews with Mary, Edward, Bella, and Lizzie.\n\nThey know who you are, and the bruises on your throat speak louder than words could, about what you risked by getting your brother and sisters free. \n\nThey try to persuade you to press charges against Arthur, but you refuse, and eventually the press come to recognize him as a victim of your Father, along with the rest of your brother's and sisters. \n\nFrom the hospital, you watch news footage of Bella and Edward reunited with their real parents. Hear Mary's account of her ordeal, and her plea for her own family to come forward. \n\nOnce his wounds are healed, Arthur is taken into full time psychological care, and you are moved into a residence for vulnerable adults. You visit him often though, and out from under Father's shadow, you both work through the anger and fear that you feel for one another. \n\nFive years after Father's death, you recieve a postcard from Canada. There are ducks on the front of it, and on the back, four words are written: \n\nFrom your loving sister,\nx\n\n\n\n\nEnding 11 of 21

You decide to look at the book. The belt is familiar enough already. \n\nPicking up the book, you find that it isn't a bible or a diary, but more mystifyingly, it is a photo album. You flick idly through a few pages of complete strangers, whose sweet faces are faded with time.\n\nYou don't find anything useful however, until you get to the final page. There you notice the edge of a piece of newsprint, barely visible from where it has been pushed down behind the photograph. \n\nWith forefinger and thumb, you tug the paper out, and are shocked to find yourself face to face with a large colour photograph of your youngest sister, Bella. \n\nYou unfold it to read the headline:\n\nDESPERATE MUM PLEADS: "HELP FIND MY FIONA!"\n\nThe phone in your office starts ringing. If you don't get back there and answer it, there's going to be trouble. \n\n[[Answer it.|getthephone1]]\n\n[[Look at the belt|belt1]]

You smooth your hand over the length of the belt, then with great care and deliberation, you swing it over your shoulder, to bring it down hard over your back. \n\nThe buckle bites through the cloth of your shirt, but it isn't as hard as he would have done it. Not hard enough to leave marks. \n\nYou try again. \n\nAnd again. \n\nUntil the buckle tears your shirt, and the leather leaves welts on your skin. \n\nAnd again. \n\nUntil there's blood seeping through the torn white fabric covering your back, and your eyes are singing with tears. \n\nAnd again. \n\nUntil in your mind the voice of God is drowned out and all you can hear is Father, shouting you down in your own mind. \n\nThen you put down the belt, and stagger back out into the corridor.\n\nArthur is waiting for you, and as soon as he sees you he steps forward to put his arm around your waist and carry your weight. He helps you through to your own room, and hovers in the doorway until he's confident that you're all right. Then returns to the bedroom he and Rebecca share, to sleep. \n\nYou can't help but feel guilty about lying to him, but he's been here too long. He wouldn't understand what you and Rebecca are doing. You can't tell him until the work is done. \n\n[[And there will be much to do tomorrow.|escapenumber2]]

Father is not generally a man who appreciates being disturbed when he has chosen to keep to himself, but after so long you don't think you could stomach a bite of breakfast without his watchful presence at the head of the table.\n\nYou take his plate with you as you leave the morning room, reasoning that if he wishes to be alone, you can at least serve him his breakfast, and set your mind at ease before leaving him in peace.\n\nThe halls of your house are all dark. Lighting them is a waste of electricity, says Father. As you edge through them, precariously carrying your plate piled high with breakfaststuffs, you don't even consider the possibility that this would be easier with light. It is as certain as the sunrise that the hallway is not lit, a simple fact of life.\n\nYou arrive at the door to Father's bedroom. In all of the years you've lived here, you have never been beyond it.\n\n[[Listen at the door|listen]]\n\n[[Knock at the door|knock]]\n\n[[Go straight in|invade]]

You think of the children. What does this mean for them?\n\nYou could keep the family together if you wanted. Leave Father to his long earned rest and take his place as the patriarch of your house.\n\nIt's what he would want, but for some reason, the thought of it chills you.\n\nYou don't want to leave the children Fatherless though, and if you don't step up to lead your family, it seems unavoidable. \n\nUnless...\n\n[[Think forbidden thoughts|earlythink]]\n\n[[Don't think forbidden thoughts|earlydontthink]]

"I just remember what she looked like."\n\nBella's voice is small, and full of unshed tears. She scrunches her face up, as if she's thinking hard. \n\n"She had big orange hair and big round glasses and she was soft all over, and she called me Button, but I can't remember her name."\n\nShe reaches up to swipe her sleeve over her eyes, mopping up the tears that have begun to accumulate there.\n\n"I don't remember anything else. I'm sorry, I'm trying-- I want to go home, but I can't-- I can't--"\n\n[["She can come with me!"|A Promise]]

You want to answer, but words stick in your throat. You open your mouth, but it feels dry, and your chest is tight. You hear the floorboards creak outside your small room, and you are suddenly certain that Father is there, huge and hunched and wrathful, with his ear pressed firmly to the door.\n\nHe's quiet, oh-so-quiet, but you can feel him, pushing the walls of your tiny workplace in on you, making it smaller, more oppressive.\n\nOver the phone, a hint of worry has crept into the warm Welsh voice, as if she too can hear Father outside. As if trying to coax you back onto your script. \n\n"Julian? Is everything all right, dove?"\n\n[[Yes.|yes]]\n\n[[No.|yes]]

But apparently God finds your current indecision to be beneath his glorious notice, because strain as you might, you do not hear his voice. \n\nPerhaps he'll speak later. \n\nIn the mean time, you decide to...\n\n[[Seek Father.|seekfather]]\n\n[[Wait for Father.|wait1]]\n\n[[Say grace and eat.|fatherisill]]

You know - because God is telling you - that she isn't going to want to hear that her boyfriend is being cold towards her because of something that will completely upend her life. \n\n"The King of Coins is a card of stability and status," You say, instead, "The ebb and flow of his emotions are a difficult thing for him to understand. That's why he and the Queen of Cups are so well suited. He needs to support her, and she needs to heal him. As long as you are steadfast and true in your love for him, he will love you for as long as time itself."\n\nShe thanks you, teary and profuse, and says her goodbyes.\n\nYou take the next call.\n\nAnd the next. \n\n[[And the next.|andthenext]]

You walk, as if you're dreaming. As if God has both his hands on your shoulders and is steering you to your knees beside Father's bed. \n\n"I'm sorry," you say, numbly, to the empty body of Father, "I failed you, and I'm sorry."\n\nHe does not reply. You are not forgiven. \n\n"I'm sorry," you say, voice quavering, as reality begins to flood your senses, "I didn't realise. I didn't know."\n\nHe does not answer. He'll never answer. You can't breathe.\n\nYou fall onto your knees, hands rising unbidden to clutch at your face. It's like the sun has been extinguished. Like the north star has fallen from the sky and you don't know what to do. You don't know how to fix it. All you know is that you're sorry.\n\nGod whispers that the lion must lay down with the lamb, so you drag yourself to your feet. \n\nYou climb onto the bed. Climb over the cold body of Father, to lie with him. \n\nYou hold him close, like by doing so, your life might seep back into him. \n\nAnd you sob, and sob, and sob.\n\n\n\n\nEnding 17 of 21

"You don't have to remember them, Bella." You blurt out, in a rush of abject relief as you find the correct page of the directory, "We've got them here. Jack and Nieve Fielding. They live at 23 Icecap Terrace."\n\n"Icecap Terrace." Rebecca repeats, "Yeah, I think I know it... Don't worry, Bella. We're taking you home."\n\nBella sniffles again, and you feel a weird tightness in your chest. Since Father's death, you're swiftly getting used to your emotions tugging you hard in opposite directions, and as much as you're happy to be setting your sisters free, at the same time, you need to confront what this means.\n\nThat after today, you'll never see either of them again.\n\n"Where are we going first?" Rebecca asks you.\n\n[[Take Bella home|bellahome]]\n\n[[Take Lizzie home|lizhome 1]]

The engine hums warmly, as Rebecca takes the car back onto the wide, busy road that brought you to the police station. The vibrations of being in side the car are still unfamiliar, but there's something soothing about them. You could fall asleep here. \n\n"What are we going to tell Arthur?"\n\nRebecca asks.\n\n"I don't know," you say, "I think we have to tell him the truth now."\n\n"We don't have to go back at all." She observes, her tone carefully neutral, "He'll be angry..."\n\nHe will be angry. He's always angry. If you never went home, he could never find you. After a day or two, his faith would fail him. He'd find Father. It would be too late for him to stop you. \n\nYou try to think about what's best for Mary.\n\n[[But you couldn't do that to him.|tellarthur 1]]\n\n[[You promsied Mary a new life...|gofree 1]]

The engine hums warmly, as Rebecca takes the car back onto the wide, busy road that brought you to the police station. The vibrations of being in side the car are still unfamiliar to you, but there's something soothing about them. You could fall asleep here. \n\n"What are we going to tell Arthur?"\n\nRebecca asks.\n\n"I don't know," you say, "I think we have to tell him the truth now."\n\n"We don't have to go back at all." She observes, her tone carefully neutral, "He'll be angry..."\n\nHe will be angry. He's always angry. If you never went home, he could never find you. After a day or two, his faith would fail him. He'd find Father. It would be too late for him to stop you. \n\nYou try to think about what's best for Mary.\n\n[[But you couldn't do that to him.|tellarthur 1 1]]\n\n[[You promised her a better life...|gofree 1]]

When you awaken, Father's room is shrouded in perfect darkness.\n\nYou find your way to the door, and twist the handle only to find it is locked.\n\n[[You feel sick with guilt.|truepenance]]\n\n[[But you can't help but think of the article.|door]]

Touching Father's things seems sacreligious.\n\nFortunately, God is telling you that it's okay. \n\nYou creep around the side of his bed and survey his living conditions. The room is dusty, but immaculately neat. There are only two things obviously available for inspection. \n\nHis belt is laying flat on top of a chest of drawers, and there is an old book placed face down on his bedside table. \n\n[[Look at the book|book]]\n\n[[Look at the belt|belt]]

You rise. Joints stiff from hours of immobility, and walk unsteadily after your brother. He leads you through the silence of the house, towards Father's room. \n\nYou have never been into Father's room before, but the door is open. Arthur stops beside it, and gestures for you to enter ahead of him. You can see Father inside, laying flat in his bed.\n\nEver so still. Ever so silent. \n\nYou don't want to enter, but Arthur takes you by the arm and steers you onwards. Through the door, into the room towards the edge of your Father's bed. \n\nClose enough that you can see how terribly still he really is. \n\nClose enough that you see his papery white skin.\n\nClose enough that you can see how his eyes hang open.\n\nArthur's mouth is against the shell of your ear, and he's hissing: \n\n"Apologise to him!"\n\nWith so much fury that it sounds like hatred. \n\n[[You apologise.|apology]]\n\n[[You can't.|defiance]]\n

Nothing can stop it. Nothing can change it. Her entire life will be turned over, and the best thing she can do is surrender to the pull of the tide.\n\n[[Tell her.|truth]]\n\n[[But God says otherwise...|lie]]

You meet Mary once a week in a big, safe room, with both of your case workers, and both of hers.\n\nFor the first few meetings, it's just the two of you, but eventually Rebecca is allowed to attend as well. Then Arthur. \n\nEvery week you talk about your memories, and your fears, and your hopes. Together, you watch the lives of your siblings - and the story of your own lives, unfold across the news media. \n\nYou get phonecalls asking for interviews, and you turn them down. One after the next after the next. \n\nAt one of your meetings, Mary announces that she won't be able to attend any longer. Her family - who, it emerges had indeed moved away after the loss of their only daughter - saw her photograph on a true crime program, and are frantic to have her back with them.\n\nArthur spends two years training to work with adult victims of abuse. Rebecca keeps fixing computers. You never really settle into work again, but you tell both of their fortunes, and you pray for them both. \n\nEventually, your case workers judge that you'll be able to survive on your own, as functioning members of society, and the three of you move out into a small apartment together. \n\nSeven years after Father's death, you recieve a phonecall, from the producer of a daytime talk show. He wants to know if you would be willing to see your other siblings again, to talk about the trauma you've experienced in front of a live studio audience. \n\nIt sounds resoundingly terrifying, and you politely decline.\n\n\n\n\nEnding 5 of 21

Rebecca takes your younger siblings to bed, while you and Arthur walk down the dark corridor, to the door of Father's room. \n\nNo light creeps out from under it, and you lower yourselves to your knees before it, like worshippers at the foot of some great monolith.\n\nYou press your hands together, squeeze your eyes shut tight, and try to ignore the snarl of your stomach in the perfect, inky dark. \n\nThe corridor behind you creaks, as Rebecca joins you.\n\n\n[[You hear a slow chorus of tonal syllables slip from Arthur's mouth beside you|tongues]]\n\n[[Behind you, Rebecca begins to weep ferverntly|holyspirit]]

"Father's health is... ailing." \n\nYou say, slowly.\n\n"He wants to see our family grow. To be assured that his legacy will be safe in our hands, should the worst ever come to pass. So it's time for Bella and Lizzie to choose a little brother or sister."\n\nMary stares at you, horror leaking into her expression, and you have to force yourself to meet her gaze.\n\n"How sick is he?" She asks, but you just shake her head.\n\n"That isn't for you to worry about. Just trust me," you tell her,\n\n[["I won't let anything happen to them."|trust]]

The next morning, there is a strange smell at the door of Father's room, so you do not linger there. \n\nYou still make his proper breakfast. You make everyone's proper breakfast. \n\nFor the first time, Arthur does not fret about Father failing to come to the table. \n\n[[He knows. Like you know.|ANDTOMORROW]]

"Because God told me not too."\n\nYou say, and you watch some of the tension drain out of your brother. He turns to look at Father's body one last time, heaving his gaze towards the old man, like it was a physical weight upon him. \n\nFinally, Arthur speaks: \n\n"He really... He really damaged us, didn't he? All of us?"\n\nYou can hear the hurt in Arthur's voice, and it makes you want to protest. To console him. But God speaks for you:\n\n"Yes. I just-- God just-- He wanted..."\n\n"He wanted something different for them." Arthur supplies, cutting you off, "You wanted something better for them."\n\nYou feel some of the awful, awful tightness in your chest release, and Arthur swallows, finally turning his back on Father's body.\n\n"We should tell someone. The police, or-- or someone. We can't just leave him here."\n\nThe three of you walk through to the tiny cramped room that used to be your office. Under the cold gaze of St. Julian of Norwich, who gazes down from an icon on your wall, Rebecca calls the police. \n\n[[She tells them everything.|police]]

"Of course it is, logged on like clockwork, eh Julian?"\n\nIt's not your name of course. Only the name he told you to give them, so many days ago that you've long lost count. \n\nYou mumble a vague sound of confirmation in answer to the question. \n\n"Here, let me put you online-- It'll just be a tic, you know what this system's like. You having a nice morning, petal?"\n\n[[Yes. |yes]]\n\n[[No. |awkwardsilence]]

"I'm sorry," you say, numbly, to the empty body of Father, "I made the wrong breakfast, and I'm sorry."\n\nHe does not reply. You are not forgiven. \n\n"I'm sorry," you say, voice quavering, as reality begins to flood your senses, "I didn't realise. I didn't know."\n\nHe does not answer. He'll never answer. You can't breathe.\n\nYou fall onto your knees, hands rising unbidden to clutch at your face. It's like the sun has been extinguished. Like the north star has fallen from the sky and you don't know what to do. You don't know how to fix it. All you know is that you're sorry.\n\nThen you feel Arthur's hand on your shoulder. \n\n"You are truly sorry, so you can be forgiven." He says, with the quiet authority of a true patriarch. \n\nYou feel sick with gratitude. \n\n"Go clear the table, and have Mary put the children to bed. Tonight we'll pray for him, and tomorrow, you will make breakfast correctly."\n\nYou nod, fear and sacriledge and relief all colliding in your stomach. The idea of Arthur sitting in Father's chair, sleeping in Father's bed, and eating Father's breakfast is a little disquieting, but that feeling is nothing compared to the consuming, infinite fear of an empty void.\n\nNothing needs to change. Everything can stay the same. \n\nThat's all you really wanted, wasn't it?\n\n\n\n\nEnding # 19 of # 21

Arthur never says goodbye to Father. \n\nHe doesn't let go of your hand, even as Rebecca retrieves the last of her tools, and loads them back into the car. The four of you drive out of the city that night, determined to stay together, no matter what. \n\nYou make a living as you always have done. Rebecca fixes laptops from a hotel room, you find a pub that will let you read cards from one of their booths. Arthur cooks, cleans, and reads.\n\nIt takes a long time for Mary to learn to trust him. To trust any of you. She retains some of her distance from you all, and after a few months out in the real world, meets a tall, nervous young man who writes code for a living, and falls in love with him.\n\nShe moves away, but keeps emailing Rebecca, so you know that she's safe and well.\n\nYou watch the stories of your other siblings unfold on TV screens and through newspaper headlines. \n\nBella, and Edward are quickly reunited with their true families. As much as you might miss them, you know, deep down, that they're happy where they are now.\n \nAnd so are you. \n\n\n\n\nEnding 7 of 21

"Icecap Terrace," You say, before glancing back to Bella, "That's where your other family lives now. So keep an eye out the window, and look out for anything you recognize."\n\nBella climbs up onto her seat, pressing her little paws against the car window, to stare frantically out as Rebecca drives.\n\nAs you go, you can't help but feel a tremble of nervousness in the pit of your stomach. What if Bella's parents aren't home? What if they aren't kind? What if you've got the wrong address after all?\n\nThese are the thoughts haunting you, when in the back seat, Bella begins to squeal:\n\n"I can see her! I can see her! She's there!"\n\nYou aren't at Icecap Terrace quite yet, but when you turn to press your face to the window, there is indeed a woman with bright orange hair, and big square glasses, lingering outside one of the shops on the road that you're currently on.\n\nThe odds of it being the right person are pretty remote. Fortunately, Father never taught any of you anything about basic statistics. \n\n[[So you direct Rebecca to stop the car.|outtacar]]

You're separated from Arthur, Mary and Rebecca as soon as the police arrive. You are inspected by doctors, rigorously interviewed by men in uniform, fingerprinted, prodded, poked, and utterly terrified.\n\nIn the 24 hours following that phonecall you encounter more people than you have seen in the entirety of your life.\n\nAfter hour eight, you lose the ability to breathe. \n\nLater, a kind medic in a green jumpsuit explains the concept of a panic attack to you. After that, you're treated more gently. \n\nYou sleep in a small, private room, and the next day, you meet two women. One wears a white, billowing blouse, and the other a slate grey suit. \n\nThis is how you learn the words case workers.\n\nIt's another day before they let you see Rebecca again. Another day after that, before they let you see Arthur. \n\nIt's longer than that (although you do not count the days) before they inform you that no charges will be filed against you. \n\n[[That's when they let you see Mary again.|End 4 1]]

You prepare dinner for your family, and eat together in a kind of tense quietude. \n\nFather doesn't come to the table, and you spend the entire meal expecting him to emerge from his room. \n\nBut he doesn't. Not even once you've cleared the table. \n\n[[Not even as you ready yourselves for bed|TOMORROW]]

You try to think clearly. You try to trust in God to guide your answer, but fear and pain cloud your mind. All you can think of is Father, laying there, listening. \n\nAll you can think of is how angry he'll be. \n\nHow angry Arthur will be. \n\n"I'll stay." You blurt out, your throat constricting as you do so, like it doesn't want to let the words out. \n\nRebecca's face falls, hurt and confusion blossoming across her face. Arthur rounds on her, buoyed by your decision. \n\n"Ha! That's right! We're staying!"\n\nYou watch the pain harden out of Rebecca's expression, and she tilts back her chin, holding her head up high as she turns on her heal to walk out into the corridor, where your younger siblings have assembled, drawn by her raised voice. \n\nArthur has looped his arm around your shoulders, holding you beside him in an iron grip as he crows after her, \n\n"Go on! Take them! Go submerge yourselves in sin! Go ready your impure souls for the pit!"\n\nEdward scuttles forwards to join you and Arthur, like a little crab that's desperate for your collective approval. None of the girls share his loyalty though. Mary has an iron grip on Lizzie's hand, and her eyes glisten with tears of joy. \n\nArthur won't stop shouting after them, like he's really and truly desperate to turn this tragedy into a triumph. \n\n"We'll look down on you one day, and we'll laugh! When we stand with Father in paradise!"\n\nIt doesn't sound like paradise to you.\n\nRebecca throws you one last pitying glance, before swinging Bella up onto her shoulders, and wrenching open the front door. \n\nArthur's arm is bruisingly tight around your neck, as you watch your sisters spill out into the night.\n\nThey let the door hang open behind them, but you make no attempt to follow them.\n\nAnd God remains stonily, miserably silent.\n\nEnding 21 of 21

The engine hums warmly, as Rebecca takes the car back onto the wide, busy road that brought you to the police station. The vibrations of being in side the car are still unfamiliar to you, but there's something soothing about them. You could fall asleep here. \n\n"What are we going to tell Arthur?"\n\nRebecca asks.\n\n"I don't know," you say, "I think we have to tell him the truth now."\n\n"We don't have to go back at all." She observes, her tone carefully neutral, "He'll be angry..."\n\nHe will be angry. He's always angry. If you never went home, he could never find you. After a day or two, his faith would fail him. He'd find Father. It would be too late for him to stop you. \n\n[[But you couldn't do that to him.|tellarthur]]\n\n[[And perhaps he deserves it.|gofree]]

You don't need to be told twice. You take Rebecca's hand, and run, coughing and stumbling, over Arthur's limp body. Out of the house. \n\nYour hand fumbles on the car door, but you get it open and practically throw yourself in. Rebecca is already in the driver's seat, and she tears away from the house as fast as she can.\n\nYou can't speak. Rebecca doesn't speak. It is Mary who breaks the silence.\n\n"Whatever happened, whatever you had to do..." She pauses, searching for what she wants to say, "...Thank you."\n\nRebecca only nods in reply.\n\nThe twinkling lights of the city recede behind you, as Rebecca steers you all away from Father. Away from Arthur. Away from the small, cramped house and the decades of pain you've suffered, and out into the unknown.\n\n[[And out into the unknown.|end 2 1]]

You can't. \n\nEven if he hates you. Even if he tried to kill you. Even if he'll never, ever forgive you, you can't leave him like this. \n\nYou tell Rebecca to run, and even though you can see it kills her, she does. \n\nOnce she's safelt gone, you drag Arthur with you into your office, and press the fabric of his shirt down hard over the tiny red puncture wounds she's left in his throat, as you call an ambulance. \n\nBoth of your hands are sticky with blood, and your brother feels cold in your arms. \n\n[[But he lives.|End 5]]

As the eldest, you are allowed to sit at the right hand of your Father. \n\nRebecca, who has a dark complexion and hair that falls in shiny brown corkscrews, sits beside you. \n\nArthur - the older of your two brothers - sits beside Rebecca, his big blue eyes drilling furiously into the tabletop. \n\nMary sits beside Arthur. The age gap between she and Arthur represents the longest period that Father ever went without growing the Family. You think that he's in his mid twenties, and you think that she's in her late teens. Her hair used to be so pale it was almost white, but years of darkness have turned it the colour of wet sand. \n\nBeside Mary sits your youngest brother, Edward. He is terrible. \n\nFinally, at the very end of the table, your two youngest sisters sit next to one another. Lizzie is just under the age of ten, full of questions that she's too clever to ask, and fiercely protective of Bella. \n\nBella is learning to be quiet. \n\nBut of course, [[you already know all of this. |breakfast]]

"Hello?"\n\nYou call, feeling your way down the dark corridor to the dining room. The light clicks on in answer to your question, and you can see your brother waiting there for you. Behind him, the table is laid, but there's no food cooking.\n\nAs you come closer, you can see how pale and drawn his face is. \n\n"Everything's been so quiet." He says, sounding pained. He looks past you, to Rebecca, "You're alone-- You-- You lost them?" \n\n\n[[Tell him the truth.|hard]]\n\n[[Try to break it to him softly.|soft]]

"You need to try and remember who you were before Father took you. Before any of this." You tell them, flicking open the phone book to begin searching for the Fieldings.\n\nThere's silence in the car. Bella and Lizzie are perfectly still, staring at you like they're waiting for a trap to spring. \n\n"It's not a test," Rebecca says, "You're not going back to that place."\n\nIt's Lizzie who speaks first,\n\n"Father--" She stutters, and immediately you feel a stab of grief, "Father will be angry."\n\n"Father is no longer troubled by earthly things." You say.\n\n"He's dead." Says Rebecca, "So he can get as angry as he likes, he is never going to hurt any of us, ever again." \n\nThe words hang in the air between you, and suddenly, the car feels too small. Close and painful.\n\n[[Lizzie breaks the silence.|lizspeaks 1]]\n\n[[Bella breaks the silence.|bellaspeaks 1]]