The Power(73)

‘Have you come … for guidance?’

Allie had looked at the request for an audience with interest. That the Senator’s daughter should be here was no great surprise. That she would want to see Mother Eve in the flesh made sense. But a private audience? Allie had wondered whether she’d be a sceptic, looking to have an argument about the existence of God. But … apparently not.

‘I’m so lost,’ says Jocelyn through her tears. ‘I don’t know who I am any more. I watch your talks and I keep waiting for … I ask Her voice to guide me and tell me what to do …’

‘Tell me your trouble,’ says Mother Eve.

Allie is quite familiar with trouble that is too deep to be spoken. She knows it happens in any house, however high. There is no place that cannot be penetrated by the kind of trouble Allie has seen in her life.

She extends a hand, touches Jocelyn’s knee. Jocelyn flinches a little. Pulls away. Even in that momentary touch, Allie knows what Jocelyn’s trouble is.

She knows the touch of women and the slow, even background hum of power in the skein. Something is dark in Jocelyn that should be lit and glowing; something is open that should be closed. Allie suppresses a shudder.

‘Your skein,’ says Mother Eve. ‘You are suffering.’

Jocelyn cannot speak above a whisper. ‘It’s a secret. I’m not supposed to talk about it. There are drugs. But the drugs don’t work as well any more. It’s getting worse. I’m not … I’m not like other girls. I didn’t know who else to come to. I’ve seen you on the internet. Please,’ she says. ‘Please heal me and make me normal. Please ask God to take the burden from me. Please let me be normal.’

‘All I can do,’ says Mother Eve, ‘is take your hand, and we will pray together.’

This is a very difficult situation. No one’s examined this girl, or given Allie advice about what her problem is. Skein deficiencies are very difficult to correct. Tatiana Moskalev is looking into skein transplant operations for precisely this reason; we don’t know how to fix a skein that doesn’t work.

Jocelyn nods and puts her hand into Allie’s.

Mother Eve says the usual words: ‘Our Mother,’ she says, ‘above us and within us. You alone are the source of all goodness, all mercy and all grace. May we learn to do Your will, as You express it to us daily through Your works.’

While she speaks, Allie is feeling out the patches of darkness and light in Jocelyn’s skein. It’s as if the thing is occluded: gummy places where there should be flowing water. Silted up. She could clear some of the muck in the channels here and here.

‘And may our hearts be pure before You,’ she says, ‘and may You send us strength to bear the trials we face without bitterness and without self-destruction.’

Jocelyn, though she has rarely prayed, prays now. As Mother Eve lays her hands on Jocelyn’s back, she prays, ‘Please, God, open my heart.’ And she feels something.

Allie gives a little push. More than she’d usually do, but this girl doesn’t have enough sensitivity to feel what exactly she’s doing, probably. Jocelyn gasps. Allie gives another three short, hard pushes. And there. The thing is sparkling now. Thrumming like an engine. There.

Jocelyn says, ‘Oh God. I can feel it.’

Her skein is humming steadily, evenly. She can feel now that thing that the other girls say they’ve felt: the gentle, filling sensation as each cell in her skein pumps ions across membranes and the electric potential increases. She can feel that she’s working properly, for the first time ever.

She is too shocked to cry.

She says, ‘I can feel it. It’s working.’

Mother Eve says, ‘Praise be to God.’

‘But how did you do that?’

Mother Eve shakes her head. ‘Not my will but Hers be done.’

They breathe in and out in unison once, twice, three times.

Jocelyn says, ‘What shall I do now? I’m …’ She laughs. ‘I’m shipping out tomorrow. United Nations observation force duty in the south.’ She’s not supposed to say that, but she can’t help herself; she couldn’t keep a secret now in this room. ‘My mom sent me there because it looks good, but I won’t really be in danger. No chance of getting into trouble,’ she says.

The voice says: Maybe she should get into trouble.

Mother Eve says, ‘You need have no fear now.’

Jocelyn nods again. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

Mother Eve kisses her on the crown of the head and gives her the blessing in the name of the Great Mother, and she goes down to the party.

Tatiana is followed into the room by two well-built men in fitted clothing: black T-shirts so tight you can see the outline of their nipples, skinny trousers with noticeable crotch bulges. When she sits – in a high-backed chair on a dais – they sit beside her, on somewhat lower stools. The trappings of power, the rewards of success. She rises to greet Mother Eve with a kiss on each cheek.

‘Praise be to Our Lady,’ says Tatiana.

‘Glory in the highest,’ says Mother Eve, without a trace of Allie’s sardonic smile.

‘They’ve found twelve more traitors; captured in a raid on the North,’ mutters Tatiana.

‘With God’s help, they will all be found,’ says Mother Eve.