The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait

off all the colleges and a hand coming down and plucking out the inhabitants one by one, flinging them first to one side and then the other.
    Mary found herself smiling. The unbelievers in their finery lifted and twirled about, their topcoats flapping up helplessly, and cast into the fiery pit for all eternity. A great voice booming down from the heavens: Mary Prickett, come! And being lifted up, straight up, into a golden glow, warmth flooding her body.
    The pastor’s voice rose and rose until it itself was a hurricane that filled the church, and filled her. His vibrations got inside her ribcage and melted back out through her bodice.
    They must not stand idle, he thundered, waiting for the coming of Jesus! They must, in their greatest efforts, bring God to the world , just as the apostles had done at Pentecost, when they baptized three thousand souls and brought many more to the Lord!
    Mary’s cheeks were hot, burning. Beside her Mr Wilton got to his feet. In front of her the pastor elevated his hands, his long, pale fingers issuing out of a velvet coat. He was the admiral of a doomed but brave ship, his cape spread out fearlessly behind. The rest of the congregation stood too, as if drawn up by the raising of his arms, and Mary with them, as if her body belonged to him.
    He opened his arms and spread his hands. Mr Wilton did the same.
    ‘Let the Holy Spirit well up within. We calleth to you, O Jesus, send down your Holy Spirit as you did at Pentecost! Come down and fill us with your spirit!’
    Mary spread her arms out as the others were doing. Her heart was exposed; her breasts were exposed too, now that she had opened her arms, and pointing heavenwards.
    Somewhere ahead a member of the congregation started to make noises. Mary stiffened. But it was not a madman; they were not hurried from the church or hushed up. No .  .  . and even another person started to make the same sounds:
    ‘ Haw haw haw kasheya. Rrabayya cattya rrrrrabya kotosho .’
    Mary looked to the pastor. In a tone of thrilling depth he exhorted the people:
    ‘Jesus, pour out your Holy Spirit! Open ye your mouths and let the Spirit pour forth! God will not speak unless you open your mouths!’
    Another deep voice to her left. Mr Wilton, with his eyes closed, his mouth open, started first to hum, then to chant: ‘ Karreya shon shon magarr che che che che .’
    ‘Speak to Jesus. He who sits on the Throne!’
    The pastor had come forward from his pulpit, in his trousers of rippling black silk, his shoes with a velvet bow, and both his arms raised to the ceiling as if he were about to be taken up to heaven. His eyes were dark but piercingly bright.
    ‘Close your eyes!’ he said, closing his own.
    Mary closed her eyes. She let the sounds, spoken in an ancient language, whirl around her. In the black space in front of her eyes she saw, in a vision, Jesus, sitting on his throne. He too wore velvet robes; His hair too was dark and long; He too held out His arms to her.
    ‘Let your mouth open and speak. The Lord cannot speak through you if you do not open your mouth!’
    Mary opened her mouth. Jesus looked at her with love, such love in his eyes that she felt it rising up inside her, gushing like a fountain, emanating from the middle of her and flowing down her thighs and up through her heart and her chest and out through her fingers, which began to tingle with heat and cold, and her mouth. Hardly knowing what she was doing, not recognizing her own voice, she began to cry:
    ‘ Korraamonshonddooor! Kayla la la la!’
    ‘The Spirit is here!’ said the pastor.
    Mary was talking to Jesus, discharging the longing of her heart in words that went directly to Him. No need to think, no need to mean anything, for this went beyond meaning to feeling.
    Mary felt poured all over by feeling. She felt so much, she longed for so much: she yearned for Him.
    The space in her chest, just below her throat, throbbed as if it were a cave that had just