Into the Wilderness: Blood of the Lamb (Book Two) (24 page)

Now Maryam was able to tell Ruth what had happened. “You mean he was scared of his own father?” Ruth said at last.

“Wouldn't you be?” The words were out before Maryam had thought through their impact, and she chided herself when she saw the way Ruth's face instantly paled. Of course she'd be scared. Hadn't she already fallen prey to Father Joshua? How could she be so stupid as to say such a thing?

As she watched Ruth's quivering chin, it suddenly struck her that she should stop assuming Ruth was blocking out her trauma through some misguided faithfulness to the Lord. Rather, she should admire Ruth's brave attempts to put what had happened from her mind—especially when Maryam herself struggled to push down her fears and keep self-pity at bay.
And
Ruth was two years younger. It made her feel ashamed. “I'm sorry, Ruthie, you've always had the courage of King David in the Holy Book. I wish that I was half as brave.”

She saw Ruth's eyes swill with tears, even as her cheeks darkened with a flattered glow. “I try.” She glanced over at Lazarus. “Do you really think we can save him?”

“Just pray that Jo can find the medicine he needs and comes back soon.” She yawned. “I think I should try to get some sleep. It's been quite a day.”

She pulled her mat over next to Ruth's and snuggled down beside her. Closed her eyes and tried to pretend they were still on the atoll in their own pandanus-thatched hut, and everything that had happened since then was a dreadful dream. She fingered the small blue stone Ruth had given her, now her only tactile link to home, drawing comfort from the warmth it seemed to store deep in its dark crystalline core. Somewhere in her mind she could still hear the soft, hypnotic whisper of the
sea upon the reef, and matched it to her breathing, willing the sweet relief of sleep to take hold and temporarily set her free.

When a nearby rooster marked the arrival of the dawn, Maryam gave up trying to chase elusive sleep. The night had not been good: Lazarus had tossed and turned and coughed. Sweat pasted his fine hair against his skull, and his wheeze was rattly, his breathing way too shallow and fast.

Now he lay lethargically and made no effort to move or speak. When their neighbour came to the door to tell them that the hot water was to be restored and the cooked meals resumed, he barely reacted. It was like watching Joseph die all over again.
If only Jo would send word.
Maryam was furious with herself for not having asked how long it took to reach the mainland or when she could expect to hear; she'd been too caught up in the excitement to think ahead. Now these questions loomed large and serious, and there was no one to answer them. By lunchtime, as she and Ruth queued with the others for their food, Maryam was so jittery and anxious she could hardly breathe herself. It was as if Joseph and Lazarus had merged to one inside her mind. Not even the surprisingly tasty chicken soup could distract her, and her hands shook so badly as she helped spoon some into Lazarus's mouth Ruth had to take over the job.

Half an hour later and the effort of feeding him seemed all the more futile when Lazarus coughed so violently he brought the soup back up. The vomit sprayed across his chest, soaking the blanket and leaving him so exhausted he felt like a dead weight as they rolled him to clean up the mess.

Later, as Maryam leaned against the doorway while waiting for Ruth to return from the showers, she noticed the guard, Charlie, rounding the corner. She ran to him, deliberately diverting him away from their hut.

“You've heard from Jo?”

Charlie did not return her smile. “I'm sorry, love, the news is bad.” He paused. “She said to tell you Littlejohn's used her father's illness as an excuse to shut her out. He won't allow her to come back.” He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It gets worse.”

“Worse?”

“He's sussed that Jo leaked news of the protests and he's spewing. Says she and her kind are putting dangerous ideas into the minds of the detainees.” He kept up the steady pressure on her shoulder. “No aid workers will be allowed back into the camp until he gives further notice. It could be weeks. That bastard's word is law.”

Weeks?
This could not be. If she did not get the cure for Lazarus, he would die. A howl broke from her as she shook off Charlie's restraining hand. She'd promised Lazarus a cure, held it up as bait so he wouldn't end his life. And now he'd think she'd lied. This was too much.
Too much.

“
It's only a few weeks,” Charlie tried to comfort her. “You can bet your butt she'll be fighting his decision with every card she's got.”

“You don't understand.” There was nothing more to say to him. She had to get away from his uncomprehending gaze.

She started to run, pushing past a dawdling group of women as she made for open ground. Her feelings were too enormous to be contained within the confines of the huts—she needed
space around her now so she could think. She thundered down the walkways until she reached the very spot where just the previous night she'd fought Lazarus to save his life. But that counted for nothing now. She had failed.

A great ball of grief churned around inside her and she sicked it up, retching painfully until there was nothing left to purge. She leaned against the wire mesh and tried to think.
Had
to think.
Come on, come on.
Lazarus was lying in their hut on the brink of death and now it fell to her alone to come up with a plan to save his life. She couldn't bear to let Joseph down—would be haunted by it forever if she failed.

It seemed cruelly unfair that the miraculous cure lay so close at hand. If only she could get into the hospital and find it for herself. There
had
to be a way.
Come on, what was it Jo had said?
That only those who lost their minds were taken there…? That you had to be crazy? Then that was it! It wasn't as if she'd even have to feign madness, for surely she would lose her mind if Lazarus died.

Little by little her breathing slowed as she pieced together a scrappy plan. She'd have to convince them she needed to be drugged, otherwise all she'd achieve was being thrown back into the cells. Just, what, exactly, would she need to do? Something so radical that even those who knew her would doubt she was in her right mind.

She started back, step by step planning what must be done. It was her only hope—Lazarus's only hope. By the time she reached the doorway of the hut she'd come to a place of frightening clarity and calm inside herself. She knelt down beside the feverish Lazarus and gently shook him, sorry to wake him but never more sure of what she was about to say.

He rolled over and opened his eyes, and a welcoming smile lifted his lips. This nearly destroyed her, the way he looked at her with such trust; it took the very last of her strength not to cry as she brushed his sticky hair out of his eyes.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “I have to go somewhere for a while, but I will return with what you need. You have to trust me—whatever you might hear. Promise me you won't give up.”

“I—”

“Promise me—on Joseph's memory—you will
not
give up until I can return.”

He dragged himself onto one elbow, trying to read her face. “What's going on?”

“
Promise me.
”

“I promise, in the memory of my cousin, I'll do my best. Now tell me what's going on.” The effort to stay upright was too much for him. He dropped back on the sleeping mat with a sickening grunt.

“I'll bring you back the cure. That's all you need to know.” She leaned over and briefly pecked him on the forehead, guilty and saddened by the way his eyes lit up at the touch of her lips. Now she rose. “Wait for me. I
will
be back.” When she reached the door she turned to find he was still watching her, his face flushed with pink. “Tell Ruth I'm sorry, and to hold on to her faith.” She ran from the hut now, before her resolve withered and failed.

“Maryam!” Lazarus cried out after her, but she dared not stop.

She skirted around the main courtyard, taking just a moment to stop and observe Ruth, surrounded by a laughing
group of children and their mothers as she neatly traced out simple words in the stinking white dust at her feet.
Such a heart
, Maryam thought. She hoped Ruth would not believe what she would hear.

At the main gates a group of men prowled the boundary fence and, out beyond, bored guards patrolled the grounds. She had expected this, but now that she was here her plan seemed suddenly ridiculous. Would her nerve—her desperation—hold? She thought about how she'd been stripped bare before the congregation of
Star of the Sea
when first she'd Crossed. How innocent she'd been. How totally humiliated. But she had survived it, and would survive this too. She
had
to, if the promise she'd just forced from Lazarus had any worth.

She ran up to the locked gates and started to scream. “Never,” she cried. “It was the source, the end, the morning and the night…” On and on, jumbling her words, making sure they made no sense while fervently hoping this was what a person did when they went mad. As she shrieked she clawed at her clothes and hair so that strands of it tangled in her fingers and came away in her hands. It was oddly exhilarating—releasing all her pent-up grief and shame.

Item by item she stripped off her clothes—her mind fixed on her goal, not daring to focus on her actions—until she writhed virtually naked before the whistling, jeering detainees. The guards were running nervously towards her now. And still she ranted, rolling her eyes and spitting as though possessed.

As the guards scrabbled for the keys to the gate, and the crowd of men beyond the fence grew ever bigger and more vocal, she threw herself onto the ground and thrashed there like a stranded fish. Two minutes more and the guards were
upon her, hauling her back to her feet while trying to press her clothing back around her. They grappled her around the neck, forcing her hands behind her back, but still she kept up an attack that only the insane would fight. When, finally, they dragged her through the open gates, she felt a ball of triumph bursting in her heart. The first small step! And she laughed right in their faces as they bundled her, bound and semi-naked, into a truck.

It took all Maryam's determination not to cower as they slapped metal restraints around her wrists and locked her arms behind her back. The pressure on her broken arm was excruciating, and however much she twisted and contorted, she couldn't ease the strain. It was hard to know which was worse—the pain from her arm or the humiliation of sitting naked, apart from underpants, in front of two antagonistic white guards. For a moment she was frozen by fear—but then she glimpsed the disgust in the men's eyes—the trigger she needed to renew her act. She'd not let them see past her madness to the skin beneath.

“
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves…
” She so surprised herself with these words she chortled aloud, thinking of Father Joshua and his brainwashed Apostles. Then her mind flitted to another verse: “…
and above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
” Joseph now sprang to her thoughts and she had to push his memory away. Thinking of him made her feel too vulnerable. She wracked her brain for more quotes, astounded by the aptness of the words her memory threw up. It was as if her mind had split in two: one side maintained this insane ruse while the other had never been so lucid or still. She kept the barrage of words flowing, hurling out the next quotation as if she were the Lord Himself.

“
I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them…
” Again her rational mind chipped in:
If only that were really true
.

On and on she raved, allowing spit to gather at the corners of her mouth and fly out to fleck her skin. But there was no response from her captors now. The guards said nothing as the truck bumped down the winding road towards—she hoped—the hospital. She rocked her head backwards and forwards until her hair unravelled and fell across her face to form a camouflaging veil. To her surprise both guards looked pale, as if they were uncomfortable with what she was venting.
And so they should be.
Again she allowed her maniacal laughter to overflow—and revelled in the sense of power such lack of inhibition brought. She could say anything,
do
anything, and not be held responsible for it, other than earning the label “mad.” It was a heady feeling, and she milked it for all it was worth.

At last the truck appeared to slow. It turned sharply now before stopping altogether. The guards waited for the driver to unlock the rear doors, then pushed her out ahead of them. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, so she stumbled, trying to get her balance, and fell awkwardly to the ground. Shockwaves coursed through her broken arm.

As they hauled her roughly to her feet, she saw ahead of her a dilapidated huddle of buildings bleached silver by the sun. They marched her up a flight of steps, in through guarded doors, and past a group of uniformed women who eyed her nakedness with bored contempt. Exhausted by her efforts and smarting from her fall, she didn't speak now, just writhed beneath her captive's grip and rolled her head rhythmically from side to side to maintain her ruse.

The guards led her down the long dingy corridor that linked all the shabby buildings into one. Finally, they stopped before a set of reinforced locked doors and knocked loudly. Two men in
grimy white coats peered out through the bars. They were not white-skinned as she'd expected, their faces sun-kissed like her own, yet their eyes appeared disinterested, almost dead.

“Another for the loony bin,” one of her guards muttered. He thrust her forward, and retreated quickly as one of the white-coated men reached for her and dragged her across the threshold, locking the door behind him with a resounding bang.

She felt so foolish, so defeated: it hadn't occurred to her she'd be locked in. How could she find the cure if she wasn't free to search? None of this was going to plan—for immediately the two new guards grabbed an elbow each, hauled her down another corridor towards a row of doors, and flung her into a small room.

They pushed her onto the solitary bed, and came at her. She backed against the wall, trying to shield herself as a blinding white panic consumed her mind. As they threw her face down on the bed, she fought back nausea…but all they did was release the restraints around her wrists.

“What's your name?” one of them shouted, perhaps believing her to be deaf. She merely hung her head and growled, shaky with relief.

“Another Jane Doe, eh?”

“Or Jane Doggy,” the other added, sniggering. “At least this one is easy on the eye.” His hand whipped out and tweaked her breast. Instantly she parried his arm away with her plaster cast, the smack resounding in the room. “Crazy little bitch,” he hissed, and cuffed her ear.

She recoiled, fleeing the bed and backing herself into a corner where she curled into a ball. With her arms wrapped tightly around her calves, she tucked her throbbing head down
on her knees, her hair forming a wiry shield.
You can do this
, she told herself.
Focus on the reason you are here.

The trouble was, she hadn't planned it through this far, and was uncertain now if she should sustain the act. Here, inside the hospital, if she was to pretend insanity—even for a short while—she'd have to up her game. Yet if she acted
too
crazy they'd drug her so she couldn't think. Why, oh why, hadn't she waited just a little longer to think it properly through?

The two men exchanged words in a language she didn't understand, laughing as they locked the door and left. She could hear footsteps in the corridor outside and tensed up every time they passed her door, but it seemed an age before the key again turned in the lock. She prepared herself, ready to revert to her demented role.

A fat middle-aged native woman entered the room and carefully shut the door behind her. She carried a metal bowl in which something clattered, and a pile of folded clothes.

“So, missy,” she said, not without sympathy, “do you know who you are and why you're here?”

Maryam thought it best not to respond. Instead, she kept her face masked by her long swathe of hair, winding her fingers through it to form tangly knots.

“Okay, sweetheart. I'll take it that's a no.” She squatted down next to Maryam, grunting at the discomfort. “Come on, now. Let's get you dressed.”

Maryam allowed the woman to ease her up and lead her back over to the bed, reassured by her kind words and gentle hands. The woman picked up a folded garment from the pile and shook it out. It was made from thick grey fabric, with overly long sleeves and straps, and she draped it casually across her arm.

“That's it, love. We'll have you right in no time now.” Her tone was soothing and her movements so calm that Maryam decided not to struggle as she gently worked one of the sleeves over the grimy cast.

Maryam couldn't figure out the purpose of the garment—the sleeves hung way down past her fingers and the straps dangled almost to the ground. By now the woman had fastened it at her back, and was taking each sleeve and crossing it over Maryam's chest. Before Maryam could comprehend what was happening, the woman spun her around, tightly tying up the sleeves behind.

No! She saw now what this garment was—some kind of restraining jacket that bound her arms. She started to resist, trying to free her arms, but the woman just pulled tighter and the jacket pinned her arms awkwardly against her body and wouldn't budge. Her plaster cast pressed hard up against her breasts, while the unnatural angle strained all the muscles in her shoulders and upper arms.

“Let me out of this!” she cried as the woman deftly tied the straps in place behind her back.

“It's for your own good,” the woman snapped. Maryam thrashed and kicked out at her. “Calm down or I'll call in the men.” She pressed Maryam down firmly onto the bed. “Sit there and don't move a muscle, or this is going to hurt you more.”

She reached for the metal bowl, and Maryam's eyes widened in panic as she caught sight of the hypodermic needle the woman held in her other hand. Memories of Mother Lilith and her tortuous bloodletting flooded her mind, and her heart raced so fast she feared she'd sick it up.

“Don't steal my blood,” she begged. She leapt up from the bed and threw herself back into the corner.

“No one's going to steal your blood, honey,” the woman laughed. She held up the syringe and pressed its end, causing a tiny stream of clear liquid to spurt from the needle's tip.

In one long stride she stood at Maryam's side, her bulk blocking her only route to escape. Then she jabbed the needle into Maryam's thigh and pushed down the plunger. Maryam felt a burning pain as she watched the liquid disappear into her leg. It was more than she could stand.

“I'm sorry,” she sobbed. “I was just pretending to be mad.” She tried to catch the woman's gaze, to convince her she was telling the truth.

Again the woman laughed. “That's what they all say, love.” She pulled the needle out and briskly rubbed the site, then patted Maryam on the cheek. “There, you see. That wasn't so bad now, was it? And soon you'll be in happy land. What's wrong with that?”

“You don't understand—”

“Of course I don't,” the woman responded in a sing-song voice. “I don't understand. You don't understand. No one here understands a jolly thing!” She dropped the syringe back in the bowl with a decisive clang. Then she ran her hands down her white skirt and turned back to Maryam with a beaming smile. “Come, lie down now, honey. Trust me, in another ten minutes you won't be able to feel your feet.”

She began to sing then. “
Father of Heaven, Whose love profound, A ransom for our souls hath found…
” She walked to the door, unlocked it and left, though for some seconds afterwards Maryam could hear her voice trailing off down the corridor.

Already Maryam felt woozy, much as she had after drinking the anga kerea toddy when she Crossed. Her brain grew foggy,
her limbs ever heavier; with some difficulty she got up from the floor and staggered over to the bed. It was impossible to get comfortable with her arms crossed and bound in front of her, and the ties bunched and pressed behind. The site of her broken arm burned as if an ember had been slipped inside the cast, stealing what little capacity she had left to think. But she had to make a plan, figure out something—something about what to do next. An urgent…thing…this thing…what thing?…she had to, had to…had to do.

“To do, todo, to dododo…” she sang, smiling at the sound, lulling her, spinning around inside her head as her eyelids drifted down.

It was dark, and she couldn't move her arms. They were stuck to her somehow, and she didn't have the strength to peel them off. And they hurt. Hurt so badly she felt the pain as a pulsing heat. She couldn't hear the distant sea or ebb and flow of Ruth's calming breath beside her.
Where am I?
Her head felt heavy, and when she tried to turn it she felt dizzy and sick.
What is going on?
Somewhere, somebody was calling out in a desperate voice, but she couldn't catch the meaning, just the anguish in the cry. Her mouth was dry and she ran her tongue over her teeth to free them from her lips, shocked to feel her tongue so thick and ridged.

Nothing made sense. It was as if she'd been left for dead, buried alive. Thoughts of worms and the shiny blue beetles that devoured the decomposing birds amidst the leaf litter of the jungle came to her mind and were made real.
Lord in
Heaven, what is going on?
She tried to twist away from the creatures, feeling how they crawled across her naked skin, terrified they were going to eat her whole. She screamed, sure she could smell the fetid stench of death. Her legs were twitching uncontrollably, her heart pounding so hard she felt it bursting out between her ribs. The night creatures were gnawing at her broken arm now, burrowing beneath the cast and tearing all her flesh straight from her bones. Sweat poured off her in cold running streams, yet still those harbingers of decay nipped on and on at her and no one came to heed her calls.

At last they overwhelmed her and she gave in to her fate, moaning only slightly now as she felt the hungry little creatures crawl up towards her mouth and nose and start to feed…