Gray had the loud-hailer again. “Open the gate,” he said. “Open it now.”
The Prophet stood still.
I never saw who hit the button. I suspected it was Uncle Aaron. There was a buzz, and the gate retracted. And Frankie stepped across the line.
Barefoot. Pockets empty. Carrying nothing, and owning nothing.
Free.
Gray
Oriana gave a cry and ran forward, throwing her arms around her sister. Mum was there, and so was Daisy. I wasn’t.
I lifted the loud-hailer again and said, “The rest of you have a choice, too. You’re hard workers. Skilled laborers. There’s a world of work out there, and it’s waiting for people like you. I’m a builder. In Dunedin, just down the road, but I was born in Wanaka, just like all of you. I’ve got good jobs going begging. Too much work, and not enough labor, so if any man here wants to give it a go, I’m willing to give him a try. All you have to do is step across the line. I’ve got people to help get you started, ready to hook you up with agencies and with churches that are waiting for you. They’re out there. They believe in God, too, just like you. They believe in goodness and compassion and service given from a willing heart, and they’re there for you.”
“Deceiver,” the Prophet shouted, losing some of his holy-man equanimity. “Serpent.”
“Daisy has done it,” I said. “So has her brother. So have her sisters. There’s money in your pocket, a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. There’s a house of your own and a life for your daughters and your sons. All you have to do is step across the line.”
Mum was beside me, grabbing the loud-hailer without so much as a by-your-leave. She said, “I know you women know how to keep a house. There are jobs going begging out there for you, too. That, and more. You can learn a trade of your own. I’m Honor Tamatoa, and I’m here to help you do it.”
The Prophet said, “Harlot. You’ll burn in Hell.”
“No,” Mum said. “You will. So come on, ladies,” she called out, dropping the loud-hailer and projecting from her considerable depths. “Come on and try it. It’s a beautiful world. All you have to do is join it.”
The Prophet said, “Stay where you are. All of you.”
A man stepped forward. “Uncle Aaron,” Daisy said from beside me, but I could have guessed. He raised his voice and said, “My family stays or goes as they please. I’ll hold no one prisoner.”
A long, tense silence, and a young man said, “Radiance and I choose to go.” His wife, with a baby in her arms, took a step, and he took her hand. Then he picked up a toddler and said, “Let’s go.” And walked across the line.
The blond who’d been holding Gilead back, one of Aaron’s sons, I guessed, handed him off to another man and did the same. All alone.
Nobody else moved. And then Aaron nodded to a woman, and they stepped forward together, a teenage girl with them.
“You’re not leaving,” the Prophet said. “You’re my blood.”
“I’m sorry,” Uncle Aaron said. “But it’s time to go.”
When he stepped across the line, the crowd behind the Prophet stepped back, the confusion and fear so thick, you could nearly smell it. A click, a grinding sound, and the fence began to slide back into place.
I called out, “That doesn’t have to hold you in. Any of you. There’s a whole new life waiting, just down the road. All you have to do is cross the line.”
A stronger stir, there at the back, and somebody was pushing and shoving his way through the crowd. And then he was running.
Not somebody trying to leave. Gilead. Sharp face, all angles and planes. Aggression on him like a stink.
The gate was closing. He made it through the gap. And by the time he did it, I was there.
He came for me like a bull, but I was the one with the red mist in my vision. So many reasons to hurt him, and every excuse in the world. Self-defense. Defense of Daisy, and of Frankie. On camera, with a couple hundred witnesses.
He was going to barrel into me, throwing punches all the way.
I let him come. And then I sidestepped.
It took him three steps to turn, but when he did, he went for my face.
I turned my body at the last moment, and the right jab went past me. And I caught the