Being Here by Barry Jonsberg

age when adulthood lay far off on the horizon of time.
    â€˜I saw the way you looked at that boy, the Cameron boy,’ mother continued. Her voice was sharp and thin as a blade. ‘The lascivious glances, the unashamed desire. You must know, girl, that love of the flesh is base and coarse. It is a mockery of true love, which is spiritual, which is God. It is the reason we were ripped from Grace. It is foul, as Satan is foul. I saw you through the window. I saw the filth and corruption in your face. You are stained by it still. And do you now deny it?’
    Mother’s hand still gripped my hair, tilted my face towards hers. I could see her eyes, the smooth sweep of her pinned-back hair framed by flickers of lightning. I still didn’t understand. Something in the way I looked at Daniel. I searched my memory, but could find no clue. How had I looked at him? He had made me smile once or twice, but that couldn’t be it. Could it? But I knew ignorance did not equate to innocence. I must have looked upon him in a way that was offensive to mother and to God. That I was unaware showed only a lack of self-knowledge. Nonetheless, I grieved that I did not understand how I had sinned. It meant I could not correct my failings. Contrite though I was, how could I avoid repeating my mistakes? I was terrified that I was set upon a path to damnation and had no means to alter the direction of my footsteps.
    â€˜I am sorry, Mamma,’ I sobbed. ‘I have sinned. Show me how to repent.’
    Her eyes softened and the fingers in my hair relaxed. She pressed down on my shoulders and I sank again to my knees. She thrust the Bible into my hands.
    â€˜Pray, Leah,’ she said. ‘Through prayer you will find the way.’
    I clasped my palms against the warm cloth of the cover and bent my head over the book. Mamma was right. The book would show me the way. Books had always shown me the way.
    I heard Adam’s voice, but it seemed a long way off. I concentrated on the words in my head, the recitation of familiar patterns that comforted. Power was invested in words. I knew that even then. Far away, Adam called my name, over and over. I shut him out. I shut everything out.
    I do not know how long I prayed. I was suspended in a state of mind where time, too, was suspended. My eyes focused on the arrowhead of my hands, the dark spine of the Book and the knotted boards that flickered as the storm hovered over us. Mother’s feet floated into my field of vision. I looked up. She carried another book in her hands. I got to my feet and my knees throbbed with redemption. Mother prised the Bible from my grip and gave me the book. It was my gift. My Dickens.
    â€˜Destroy it, Leah,’ she whispered. ‘Destroy it.’
    A deafening clap of thunder filled the silence left by her words. I glanced at the roiling sky, flecked with flashes of light and charged with power. The air tingled, but no rain fell. The world held its breath. I studied the cover of the Camerons’ present, the gold stamped into leather, the promise of riches. I opened it. The cream of the paper, the rustle of quality. I took two of the pages between my thumb and forefinger. I tried to tear. My brain sent orders to my body.
    But nothing happened.
    My knuckles blanched, a muscle twitched in my arm.
    But nothing happened.
    A tear rolled down my cheek. It hung for a moment on an outcrop of chin and I sensed it fall. In my imagination, I saw a small circle appear on the floor beneath my feet, a dark stain that would, in moments, shrink and vanish.
    â€˜I can’t Mamma,’ I said.
    â€˜Nonsense,’ said my mother. ‘Or do you hold to your sin yet?’
    She gripped my hand in hers and yanked downwards. The pages split along the binding, a lightning flash that forked towards the bottom of the spine. It was as though something ripped inside me. My fingers lost their hold and the book fell to the floor. The torn pages drifted after it,