calling another.
And the rugby players. Twelve members of the Highlanders squad, standing in a single row, facing the fence, arms crossed like they were about to do the haka. That big, and that menacing. Kane and Luke took a place at the end of the row, and the average height and weight got a little higher.
A scramble, then, as cameras and sound equipment were hauled out of vans and set up. A cameraman from a local TV station, the reporter out front, her back to the fence, testing the mike while the cameraman panned over the gathered crowd. And a man from the newspaper, with another photographer.
Everybody Gray and Honor and Drew Callahan and I could call on was here, and they were still coming. Car doors slamming, people spilling out.
On the other side of the fence, figures in brown and white were starting to come out of the hostels, the kitchens, the barns. Women adjusting caps and retying aprons, standing back close to the buildings, arms folded tight around themselves, whispering to each other. Kids standing beside them, quieter and more still than kids would have been anyplace else. Anyplace where obedience wasn’t prized above everything.
And from the milking shed, men running fast.
Including my father.
Gray walked over to the media people for a word, then came back to me and asked, “Ready?”
“I’ve been ready for twelve years,” I told him. My heart was beating harder than it ever had in my life, and every muscle was tense. But I wasn’t scared, not this time. I wasn’t sixteen, and I wasn’t friendless.
My name was Daisy Nabhitha Kittredge. I’d chosen it myself.
Gray pulled a loud-hailer out of the back seat, and the light in the sky continued its slow, spectacular progression from red to orange. A backdrop to a drama.
Showtime.
Gray’s voice boomed out. “Attention Mount Zion. We’ve come to talk to Frankie Kittredge. Bring her out.”
The figures in caps and aprons got a little more animated, shifting from foot to foot. The men formed up into a row in front of them. And then both lines parted, because the Prophet was making his way through them.
My great-uncle, Steadfast Pilgrim. White shirt. Brown trousers. White hair and spectacles. Looking strong in his righteousness. Looking holy.
I wanted to shrink back. I didn’t.
Directly behind the Prophet, Uncle Aaron stood, his hand on the shoulder of his oldest son. My cousin Gabriel. Twenty-four years old, his blond hair shining, looking like the archangel for whom he’d been named.
The Prophet walked forward, and the rest of the community moved with him like a wave until he stopped fifteen meters on his side of the fence and raised his voice to cover the distance. It projected easily. He was used to addressing a crowd.
“It’s the Lord’s day,” he said. “No day to sin.”
“You’re right,” Gray said. “That’s why we’re here. There’s nothing more godly than this.”
“You say that,” the Prophet said. “Heathen.” His voice rose higher and rang out in the morning stillness. “Worshipers of worldly temptation. Painted women and fornicators, here to tempt the worthy. You have no place here. You have no home here.”
A nervous shuffle of feet behind him. A stirring of something.
Gray said, “Bring her out. Bring Frankie.”
We knew she was here. Uncle Aaron had rung back at midnight and told us so. The six hours between then and now had been agony.
The Prophet said, “There is nobody by that name here.”
I took the loud-hailer from Gray and said, “Bring my sister out. Fruitful Warrior. Bring her out to talk to us.”
“She is in the hands of her appointed husband,” the Prophet said. “That is his decision to make, not mine.”
“She was abducted by him, you mean,” I said. “The eyes of New Zealand are on you. There’s nowhere to hide. If she wants to be here, bring her out to tell us so.”
“The eyes of New Zealand are on me?” he said. “I see a band of sinners who have forsaken God’s ways. I see heathens and whores. I see nothing but the wicked and the damned.”
Movement behind me, and I turned to find Drew Callahan standing there. Sir Andrew Callahan, once and always captain of the All Blacks.
“Give it to me,” he said.
I did.
He said, “Come on, boys,” and his team walked over to join him, then formed up in their row again.
Huge. Formidable.
Drew held the loud-hailer to his mouth and said, “This is Drew Callahan. Bring that girl out to talk to her sister, or you won’t answer to Daisy.