The Tens Read online

  'If they come back and feed us, they will give us the paralysing potion again. Or the memory loss thing.'

  'Memory loss thing?'

  'Yeah, you know...' Abigail realised her mistake and busied herself careful shifting the plastic jerry can of fuel.

  'Abigail. I do not know. Tell me about this memory loss thing.' Sophie folded her arms.

  Abigail chewed her lip and squished her face up, like a jellyfish about to jettison forward.

  'Have you noticed strange things since your thirtieth birthday?'

  'Well, my husband left me not long after, so yeah. You could say that.'

  'Right. But even before then, did your nightmares increase? Did you hear voices? Did you always feel a little bit like you were going crazy?'

  'Not just a little bit. I went full-blown crazy. I thought I could fly! I tried to jump off a fucking balcony Abigail. Hence why I started the sessions with Carla. What are you telling me, Abigail?'

  'It was all orchestrated. When you were little, very little, you were fed the memory loss supplement. It's like a strong version of the copper water we use. You were probably no more than four or five. So lore has it.'

  'I'm sorry, what? How do you know all this? Did Alex tell you this?'

  'Sophie…’ Abigail’s face crumpled with earnest and she fiddled with her hair. ‘You were born here. You were fed this potent potion to repress your memories of this place as an experiment and keep you somewhat obscured from this world. Then released into the wild, as it were. The Seniors wanted to see how effective the memory potion really was. It was always designed to wear off on your thirtieth birthday. And it sounds like your inherent magical abilities that were dormant, aided by complete amnesia, started to sprout to life. To someone who is not of the alchemical persuasion this looks, unequivocally, like madness. We were so excited when Alex reported that you had started to regain some of your mystical abilities, although you had no idea they were such. Everything we had been waiting for: the crosshatch, the missing link, to preparing ourselves for Venus' return was happening. But what we weren't counting on was you discovering us before we brought you here. Talk about divinity! It really rushed us and we made mistakes in our hastiness. We missed our first window when Venus was in Retrograde.'

  Sophie couldn't help herself but look at Abigail like she was the unhinged one. The sweet girl had no reason to fib to her but she had obviously been fed a cacophony of lies, which again tugged on her heartstrings. There was more damage than she first thought.

  'I know you don't believe me. I don't know how to convince you that it's true. And you don't have to believe it. But doesn't it feel like peace to have some semblance of an explanation why you suddenly started experiencing weirdness out of nowhere?'

  Abigail was right. Half the painful battle of her deteriorating mental health was the inability to lay blame, to place a reason where it all started to unfurl. It was part of the appeal why she kept going back to therapy with Carla. And why she had to desperately find Alex instead of letting him go. Sophie was convinced that if she could just find a reason why she was unravelling, that she would be able to mitigate it: take the right vitamins, learn the right cognitive techniques, eliminate the stressors... and she would be fine. But the needle kept swaying too wildly for it to land on the answer.

  'So, I'm not mad? Everything that has been telling me that I've been losing my mind has actually been happening to me? Even feeling sick all the time? That's because you lot have been slowly destroying me through Alex?' Sophie felt dizzy and a realisation took hold of her. As the screen to reality became less grubby, she saw that a whole group of people had been conspiring against her and there was no way she could have seen that. The whole time she thought was descending into some kind of irrecoverable madness.

  A chill swept through Sophie like someone had opened a window. 'When you say I was born here, do you mean that I was born in this place?'

  'As far as I know. It was a few years before I was born, but like me, you were born here.'

  'That's impossible. My parents...'

  Abigail gave her a sympathetic look.

  'Are you saying my parents were part of this heinous tribe?'

  'Yes, Sophie I believe so. They were valued and loved. Particularly for creating our first member born into The Tens.'

  'Why the hell would they choose to be part of this nonsense?' Sophie was outraged.

  'I can’t really be sure of their reasons. But I do know that a lot of people find genuine appeal in being part of a culture that takes care of their own. You heard Jesse’s story. Everyone is very loved here, even if you can't see it yet. As long as we follow the book and what Carla says, then life can be filled with safety, security and wonderment. And the pull of reconnecting again to Venus is powerful.'

  'Did you know that my parents died in a car crash?'

  Abigail stared at Sophie, waiting patiently. And then the penny dropped. All these realisations tumbled one after the other. And yet, a strange sense of understanding came with them. It was as if this was the information she had been waiting for her whole life.

  'It wasn't an accident, was it Abigail?'

  'I don't think so, from what I've been told. Carla and Clive threaten us with the tale all the time. It's a way to make sure we are too scared to leave. Your parents were doing the right thing, they wanted to take you away and live in the world again. They didn't want you to be subject to whatever Carla had planned for you. They had no hope, really. The day of their crash, they were all set to speed away with you in the backseat. But the car flipped out of control, which Clive still purports was the doing of the Wild Woman. Your parents were killed instantly but you, well you were reportedly untouched and unphased, sitting quietly like a ghost in the back. This was further testament to how we revered you as a magical one. Carla and Clive must have slipped you the memory concoction before the emergency crew arrived and then skulked back into the clearing. It’s nothing short of miraculous that, through a series of events, you found your way back to us.’

  'I was raised in this place? Until I was five?'

  'Yes. And because you were young, you were more receptive to the alchemical teachings. But more than that, we knew you had something special within you. At least, some of us did. Those of us who worked more closely with you have regaled us time and time again. Most of the commune didn't even realise that most of the abilities you already held within you at the time. That you could magnify any experience more than anyone. You are the crosshatch.'

  There was nowhere for Sophie to put this information. She felt like it wasn't even hers to store away. If any of it was true, it wouldn’t just explain the way everyone at the camp looked at her but explained so very much in her life. Her lifelong sensitivity to being Ghost Girl, the hallucinations, hair loss, the missing parts of her childhood and nightmares. 'So why do Carla and Clive want to kill me? If I'm their supposed key?'

  'Crosshatch,' she corrected. 'I don't really know. I think Carla discovered in your sessions that you weren't as powerful as they had anticipated. It would have been a huge letdown for everyone, nearly thirty years in the making. Carla hates to be wrong. I've never seen her admit to being wrong. That's why she keeps Clive around her, he always tells her she is right and agrees with everything she says. Or mostly does. They don't really have a choice but to silence you for good.'

  Sophie contemplated her, her nose pressing back into itself. Unconsciously, she pressed at her fire scar hoping a dull ache would show itself but nothing came. It was no more than a scar, as if she had acquired it in teenagerhood. There was no guarantee that she had not descended further into the abyss of insanity and everything she was experiencing was a carefully constructed delusion. She could be tucked up at home in bed, for all she really knew.

  'How do I know any of it is real?'

  'Well, you don't. But there are some things that you could consider. Has the consistency of this experience been the same the whole time you've been here? Do you understand the d
ifference between right and wrong and want to get away to preserve your own life?'

  Sophie nodded but remained sceptical.

  'It's real Sophie. It's quaint and it's queer and it's something society shuns as madness. But it's real. All that I've told you, it has happened to you. Whether you believe in the Venus stuff— I know that even I, who has been taught nothing else have questioned it very occasionally— is entirely up to you. Either way, you have to escape.'

  Abigail’s voice lowered and deepened. She was no longer the Abigail that Sophie knew. It was as if someone was speaking through her. Abigail's wisdom shot through her and as she talked, she saw the face of another superimpose over hers. A face that seemed familiar but one that she had never seen in the flesh. Sophie thought she recognised it from the book.

  'Carla really is sinister, isn't she?' Sophie posited.

  'Since you have come here, I have seen that more and more. I spent most of my childhood not even questioning so. But then I started to have dreams about Madame Maudelynne— the creator of The Tens— and she would tell me that "not everything is as it seems" and that I "didn't have to believe what I was told". I, too, thought I was going insane at first and that I just had to believe harder, worship harder, be more involved in ritual. But when you came, hearing you talk about another way, another life, another world... I knew that Madame Maudelynne was sending me a message through time, through space, through dimensions, to listen to my heart and question what the Seniors, and even the book, told us.’

  Sophie thought of the pages in the book that she recognised. Madame Maudelynne and The New Way, they were titled. Madame Maudelynne was a sought after psychic reader who joined a beloved travelling circus in the 1860s. After a bout of insanity, she started believing that Venus was coming to join with earth and that people needed to prepare for the new way through the worshipping of copper and its supposed alchemical properties. And thus, she formed The Tens.

  Sophie sniffed at the irony that all three women questioned their sanity and their own worlds. They were all bound by the thread of mysticism, disguised as insanity.

  There was a parallel and familiarity that Sophie witness in Abigail and she wasn't too proud to admit that she liked it. 'Thank you for telling me all this Abigail. I'm not sure I can truly believe any of it yet but I owe it to you to help you discover a new world. One where you are free to question things without the crushing weight of believing you're insane. There's a whole, beautiful world out there just waiting for you. You're going to love it! You can go to classes and learn just about anything you want to. Or go to a supermarket and choose just about any kind of item you can think of. From pre-chopped onions to complete roast chicken meals, already cooked. Have you ever watched TV?'

  'No but I have heard of it. And I saw it briefly in a window when I visited the city with Clive once.'

  'Oh, you are going to love it! There are so many stories and shows on TV, you can watch what you want, whenever you feel like it. Best of all, no one is going to make you put fire on yourself.'

  Abigail smiled at her with a warmth that radiated outwards. 'It sounds overwhelming! Maybe a little at a time?'

  'Of course. You have the rest of your life to discover things.'

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  In all her serenity, Abigail ushered Sophie over. 'Come on, let's do this now. It's time to break free.' Sophie knew she was talking about the shed but suspected she was talking about more.

  Abigail splashed a little of the fuel at the base of the shed wall, far enough away from the door so they could escape without inhaling too much smoke or getting caught in the explosion. The acrid tang wafted up at her and gave her a kick of energy.

  'Be ready to make an absolute run for it when this goes off,' Abigail warned.

  Sophie shook her legs out, trying to rid them of the last bouts of pins and needles and numbness.

  'Give them to me,' Abigail gestured at the gunpowder cases and Sophie obeyed. The frail bird that Abigail was had left her and she had transformed into a plight of power and direction. Sophie found herself admiring her.

  'Okay, so when this goes off, it's going to leave a hole which is hopefully going to be big enough for both of us to squeeze through. Then we just run. Flat out.'

  Sophie grabbed one of the ugly Tens jumpers and ripped of each sleeve, fastening one around Abigail's nose and mouth and one around her own. The rest of the jumper she soaked in fuel and laid in a line from the faded jerry can towards where they both stood a few metres away. A single nod let Abigail know she was ready.

  ‘Now what?’

  They both looked around them desperate to find something to light the fuel. Suddenly, Sophie gasps and reaches into her pants. The matches that she found near the bird were thankfully hidden deep down in her pocket. She pulls the thin packet out triumphantly.

  Abigail held out her hand and Sophie lobbed them straight into the centre of her palm. The first match struck out and went nowhere. The second took but didn't light the jumper. There were two remaining matches and both didn't like their chances. Abigail crossed her fingers and held them up to Sophie and lit one of the remaining matches. The movement slowed down, slower than time itself. In a perfect arc, Abigail shot the lit match through the air and into the mouth of the jerry can. Sophie watched it, mouth agape. At first, nothing happened. There was a horrid, empty second where despair fell out of both their bodies. But all at once, the can exploded into a perfect cylinder of fire. And then it met the gunpowder and it cracked as it ricocheted off the shed wall.

  Through the sluggish smoke, they watched a hole appear before them filling with inviting twilight. It was small, so they would have to crouch but they could get out.

  'Go!' Abigail demanded.

  Sophie rushed forth, eyes squeezed shut against the smoke and launched herself, hands first, at the opening. Searing agony shot through her hands as they hit the hot iron and then the scalding ground and she screamed into the makeshift mask. When she could manage to open an eye, she saw trees in the distance. That was the first thing she noticed. Greenery, beckoning her away from a place that did nothing but, if Abigail was right, poison her from an early age. She scraped her belly along the hot concrete and felt the sharp lip of curled iron scrape across her back, through her clothes. Wiggling her hips through the opening, she crawled out onto the dirt outside, her legs unsteady and her lungs closing in on themselves.

  Rolling to the side, to make room for Abigail, she used her elbows to push herself up and looked around, terrified that Clive or Carla would see her. But there was no one around and so she bolted towards the closest set of trees.

  Sophie pressed her back against a Mallee gum and ripped her mask down with her injured hands as parts of her body battled for attention in their agony. Struggling for breath and with eyes full of clouds, she arched her head around to see if Abigail had followed her.

  Sophie screamed into her hands when she saw what was unfolding at the shed. Abigail was halfway through the hole and Carla had grabbed her by the neck shaking her roughly. Even through the whining of her ears, she could hear Carla's admonishment. She had yanked Abigail all the way through the shed's hole and to the ground, where she hunched over something small cradled in her arms. Abigail looked so tiny, like she could have disappeared into the ground. As Carla yelled at her, fury pouring from her mouth so much that her head looked like it was going to jerk clean off her body, Abigail stood purposefully.

  Proud of her defiance, Sophie willed her to run towards her, so they could escape together and she could fulfil her promise. But Abigail didn't run. Or even walk. She turned to the direction where Sophie was hiding and Sophie watched her mouth 'run' as she poured the contents of the red container over her head. Amid her confusion, Sophie stood still. Had Abigail changed her mind? Was she going to stay? Carla held up her hands and quickly walked backwards and it was then that Sophie realised what the tiny scarlet thing pulsating in Abigail's hand was. The last match.

  Sophie whipped her head
around, back to the comfort of the green trees, before she had to witness Abigail being completely ravaged by flames.

  Gasping as she ran faster and harder than she ever, her lungs burned and her head swam. The shock of Abigail's sacrifice spurred her to run further and faster than she knew herself to be capable of.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  Pumping her numb legs into the ground, Sophie kept expecting to reach the fence, the same one that lined her safety. That was the threshold from crossing over from a woman whose husband had left her to one that had stumbled upon a cult that had enslaved her, her whole life.

  But the fence didn't show up and she had no idea where she was going. The shock pumped through her and the woodland turned into obsidian silhouettes against the dusk sky. It wasn't just the looming night that was scaring her. What had been a breeze had started to develop into a promise of a sinister wind. The trees rustled so much that they sounded like monsters or waves of infrequent TV static. The wind quickly became an animal.

  Sophie could have stood at the top of the rise and not hear anyone shout her name over it. It howled and emptied its lungs and roared to a crescendo and then died off like it never existed.