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Will She Remember the Lights?

by Samuel Poots

The reader spits out my finance card, its screen flashing a book and cross in luminous green. The young man behind the counter gives me a wary look as he hands the card back and says, in a carefully neutral tone, “Sorry Brother, your account has been locked.”

His words ripple through the queue of people behind me; their stares prickling across my skin like crawling ants. All I can do is murmur an apology, hoping that I sound more confused than guilty, before hurrying out of the store and making my way to the Financial Office across the town square.

Winter winds have stripped the place bare of people. Even the Security Deacons have found excuses to linger indoors, which is one small mercy. The only other face I see as I cross the open span of concrete is that of the Reverend Father shining from his pole-mounted projectors. The image flashes from fatherly love to stern disapproval, so I’m never quite sure which I’ll see when I look up. Normally I take some comfort from the sight. Light blazes from that face, pushing back the growing shadows of this darkest time of the year. It might be a far-cry from the colourful bunting of my childhood, but I take pride in knowing that it’s often my wiring that keeps the Reverend Father always before us.

Normally.

The doors to the Financial Office slide open and a small, dumpy woman in a grey jacket and skirt looks up from behind her desk. She smiles in a cut-glass kind of way. “Hello, Brother. Peace be with you. How might the Church help?”

“I appear to be locked out.” I say, proud that I can keep my voice from trembling. What if they’ve made me an Invisible?

She plucks my card from my fingers and feeds it into her own account reader. The machine whirs away to itself and she frowns down at the screen as all the little secrets of my financial history play out before her. It’s all I can do not to try and crane my neck to see.

My breath starts to come in little gasps. The more I try to control it, the more panicked it grows. I feel the urge to flee, to go home, grab Cynthia and never stop running, though I don’t know where we could run to.

Which is stupid of me! I haven’t done anything wrong. Not even the slightest disloyalty to the Reverend Father.

Not to the Reverend Father, maybe, whispers a voice in the back of my thoughts. But what you’re planning is hardly in keeping with his message, is it?

Before I can stamp that out, the reader gives a little bleep and the woman breaks into a grin. “Well, you’ll be relieved to hear, Brother Graham, that you’re not locked out as any sort of punishment.”

“I’m not? I mean-” I hurry on when she raises an eyebrow. “Of course I’m not. I just meant, well, it’s not that I did anything or – What I mean is, why are my finances locked then?”

She lets out a silvery laugh. “Oh, it’s quite routine at this time of year. We carry out random financial blocks throughout the parish, just to make sure no-one is trying to bring back any of those old, unholy ways.” Her smile practically glitters at its edges. “It’s as well to be vigilant. After all, if one day is declared holy does that not means others are made less so?”

Almost verbatim from the Reverend Father’s First Sermon on the Purity of Worship. A low sigh of relief escapes between my lips and I’m already reaching forward for my card when she continues.

“I just have to ask you a few questions and then you’ll be free to make your purchases. Is that all right?” She hits a button on the computer, quite oblivious to the fresh panic she’s sent spiking through my chest. “What were you planning on purchasing today?”

“Craft supplies. Coloured ink and the like.” Which is true. “For my daughter.” My palms tingle at the tacked-on lie.

“As a gift?”

“No. No, certainly not. School project.” A painful lump builds in my throat. My eyes wander to my finance card sticking out the back of the machine.

It would be so much easier to just talk to the Reverend Father; I am sure he would be an understanding man. But I have yet to earn the right to meet with him, despite all my work. Such honours are reserved only for those who have proven their devotion through labour and dedication. So the Church Elders tell me with each day’s list of tasks.

“One final thing,” the woman says. This time she looks up. Her eyes are as cold and distant as the sky outside. “Will you be attending special service on the twenty-fifth of this month?”

I almost let myself relax. “No, of course not. Just the usual sermon broadcast.”

Silence stretches out between us for a long second. I wish I could see what she has typed for the Church Elders. My palms keep tingling, clammy no matter how much I wipe them against my trousers. There aren’t any other doors I can see, but that doesn’t mean that Security Deacons aren’t about to rush in declaring judgement upon me, that they haven’t somehow read my mind and seen the Tree.

The reader beeps once more and my card is spat out half an inch, ready to be taken.

“That all appears to be in order, Brother.” The woman gives another of her glass-sharp grins. “The Church has been quite generous with your funds, I see.”

I take the card, resisting the urge to turn and run with it out into the street. “I helped with the meeting house wiring. Lighting, you know?”

“Doing the Lord’s work,” she says with a nod. “You have a good day now.”

The glass doors slide open behind me letting in another grey-suited figure clutching their finance card in one tight fist. The wind, once bitter, is now almost refreshing, blowing away the fear of the Financial Office. I hurry off to make my purchases, not looking up at the flashing expressions of the Reverend Father in case I see the wrong one.

I can vaguely remember the days when those images didn’t sit atop their poles. Winter would come and the whole town would be strung about with colourful threads of light, all spelling out Merry Christmas, and the shops were full of toys no-one could afford anymore. It’s all little more than flashes of colour now, dulled by time to just a sense of the occasion. I have no idea why they used to decorate trees like that and when I was old enough for such explanations to matter, there was no-one around to tell me. But I do remember how it made everything feel special.

It’s good that it’s gone, along with all those other trappings of a time that forgot God. Before the Church took it all away and led us back to economic and moral well-being.

But four-year-olds don’t think about those things. They see the lights and know something special is happening.

My Cynthia’s the same age I was then.

I have to step over an Invisible to get to my car. I’m glad to see the paint hasn’t been scratched. The Church only gifted me with it a month ago so I can help fix the electrics at meeting houses around the county. I point it for home, while above the town looms the familiar symbol of the closed book behind a blood-red cross.

---

I walk to the forest. It’s not that I’m ungrateful for the car, but I’m fairly certain it’s tracked. It would be silly of the Church not to keep an eye on its property, and I know the Elders wouldn’t understand what I’m doing. If I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure that I do either.

Dusk gathers quickly at this time of year, leaching all colour out of the world. By the time I reach my chosen tree, there isn’t much light left to work by. It stands at the centre of a cluster of other pines, each one reaching up to the sky, branches intertwining with one another to form a great domed cathedral. Compared to those, the one I’ve selected looks pretty unimpressive. You wouldn’t think it was special at all, but for one little girl I hope it will become a memory she can hold onto.

I unload my electrical tools and craft supplies and get to work. Every so often, a stick snaps or a branch creaks and I pause, not daring to breathe. Security Deacons don’t have much call to be out this far from the towns, but you never can be too sure. Their zeal for the Church is…inspiring.

I don’t continue working until I am sure it was just an animal and try to ignore the growing prickling feeling on the back of my neck.

It’s slow going, but fortunately there isn’t much left to do. I’m finding a quiet satisfaction from this project, far more then I get just endlessly re-wiring the meeting house’s old television set. When the last strand of bulbs is hung from the branches, their glass dipped in colourful inks to tint their light, I step back to admire my work.

“And God said ‘Let there be Light’ and He saw that the light was good.”

I don’t mean to speak the words. They bring a little sting of shame with them, a minor blasphemy, the sort that the Reverend Father warns can build up one upon the other like snowflakes, until all the world is swept away by an avalanche of small transgressions. For a second, I want to tear down this thing I’ve made and fling it back into the distant past where the Elders have rightfully confined it. But I can still remember the wonder of those mornings, still remember the feeling of seeing a tree light up a room. And I want Cynthia to have that.

Behind me, something rustles in the underbrush. I freeze. Any second there’ll be a yell, a heavy hand on my shoulder, a Security Deacon reading out the rites of banishment and driving it home with their club. I strain my hearing, waiting for that next sound.

Another soft snap of twigs. Could they be sneaking up behind me? But the Security Deacons don’t sneak. They’re the glorious arm of the Reverend Father’s will. They don’t hide who they are, they declare it for all to know that their time for repentance is now passed. Another animal? But I’ve never heard any that move with that measured tread.

I spin around, ready to run at any sign of—

It’s an Invisible. A woman, dressed in an assortment of rags, looks back at me from behind a tree. Her eyes glimmer in the shadows, two bright points in the fading day.

We stand there for a long time. A second figure appears beside her, their ragged clothing also marking them as an Invisible. Then a third. The whole world grows distant and still as they watch me and I watch them.

I turn my back on them and set off as fast as I can walk. I should report them. Three in one place – and confident, too, to show themselves. Maybe they live there, in the forest. Invisibles are not allowed to make settlements. They must wander forever, never stopping, never resting, doing penance for whatever wrong caused the Church to cut off their finances and banish them from all decent society. Everyone who touches them, who even looks at them is made unclean and must share their fate. No money, no friends, no family, no Church. Just endless wandering, driven on by the Security Deacons.

I should report them! But then the Church would find the Tree. Would one good deed outweigh the crime?

I walk alone except for my thoughts and the moon emerging high above, the Invisible’s eyes shining bright in my mind.

---

Cynthia is playing alone with her dolls when I come to collect her from her crèche. The roughly carved figures were lent to us by the Church for her birthday, each one a little replica of someone from our perfect society. The Mother. The Father. The Child. The Reverend Father. The Security Deacon.

She has taken the little floral-print dress off of the mother and stuck it on the Security Deacon, who looks quite fetching with that and their bulbous green helmet. I smother a smile. The Church would definitely not approve.

She holds the doll up for inspection. “Look! She wanted to be a Security Deacon too, so she can fight bad guys. And now all the others want to watch her fight a…” She frowns for a moment and then grins in triumph. “A croco-cow!”

I know I should be disapproving, but despite myself I laugh. If I’m allowed my little transgression, maybe I should allow her this one. I scoop Cynthia up into my arms. “A croco-cow? What’s that then, little ‘un?”

She inspects her dress-clad Security Deacon. “I dunno. But Sister Francesca at school showed us a picture of Noah’s Arc and there was a crocodile on it, but it looked like a green cow, so I think that’s a croco-cow. With big, BIG teeth!” She demonstrates by making gnashing gestures with her hands.

After being eaten by the croco-cow, I put her down and tell her to get her coat. “We’re going for a little trip before we go home.”

“Can I bring my dolls?”

“No. Don’t want to get them lost. But make sure to put on your gloves, it’s going to be cold out there.”

We have to risk the car. A December night is no time to make a four-year-old walk all the way out to the forest. Hopefully, whoever tracks Church cars will have better things to do then worry about us taking a half-hour trip out to the forest. In her seat beside me, Cynthia is singing one of the songs they teach at school.

“Watching over, watching over, He is watching over me. Watching over, watching over—”

She’s got stuck on the chorus, trapped in a joyous little loop of her own. I don’t have the heart to tell her to stop, but those words press down on me, growing heavier with each new repetition. I mutter an apology to God and pray to Him that the Reverend Father will be understanding too.

The forest is crisp and cool, a fresh rime of frost crunching beneath our feet. I keep Cynthia quiet during the tramp up to the Tree by the simple trick of giving her a boiled mint sweet. She’s still sucking on it with a curiously determined expression by the time we reach the spot.

“All right,” I say, letting go of her hand. “Wait right there, Love.”

“It’s dark out here.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going to switch a light on.”

“Forests don’t have lights and I don’t like it!”

“Just a minute, pet, just a minute and I’ll – Aha!” Searching around at the base of the Tree, I locate the power pack I’d smuggled there. With a flourish she can’t possibly see, I flick the switch.

The quiet of the forest breaks as the power pack chugs, whirs, and hums itself into life. And then…then there is light.

Cynthia’s jaw drops open, the mint slipping from her tongue. She’s not alone, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. On every branch, woven between the great strands of lights I had set up myself, the Tree has been adorned with all manner of colourful decorations. They sparkle against the dark green, looking so rich and vibrant that it takes me a minute to realise that these have been made from junk.

On one branch a brown and red robin hangs, its feathers made out of old scraps of cloth. On another, a star made from twists of tin-foil spins gently. Here, a paper angel, there a twig reindeer. On their own, each thing might appear shoddy. Together, on our Tree and with my lights, it is a sight from Christmases of childhoods passed.

At last Cynthia breathes. “Daddy, it’s a light tree!” She looks up at me and now her grey eyes sparkle as bright as any light I could make. “Did you make it?”

“Well, some of it,” I admit. And that’s when I spot the dark shapes lurking around the edges of the Tree’s halo.

They step into this arboreal cathedral in ones and twos. Ill-fitting, much-repaired clothes hang from wire-thin frames. Most of them are young – there’s rarely such a thing as an old Invisible – some barely more than children themselves. And all of them have their hollow-eyed gaze fixed firmly on our tree.

There must be a dozen of them! I hold Cynthia close to me and try to keep all the Invisibles in sight at once. How can there be so many people who have rejected the ways of the Church?

“Who are they, Daddy?” Cynthia asks.

“No-one!” I snap without thinking. “No-one. Don’t look at them, Love. They’re not people anymore.”

“But they’re putting more stuff on the tree. Look!”

Sure enough, some of the Invisibles are carrying more of the lovely, scratch-built decorations. They dangle them wherever they find a space, covering it in Christmas. One of them turns and I recognise the woman from earlier.

She smiles and starts walking towards us. I push Cynthia behind me, away from her. The woman has a hand extended, her lips opening, about to speak and I clap my hands over my ears, not willing to hear whatever blasphemies she might say.

Something tugs at my sleeve. “Daddy, she says I can hang this one up. Can I?”

The Invisible is crouching in front of Cynthia. And my little girl is holding up an angel with wings of golden sweet wrappers. The Invisible smiles again at me. The expression looks strained and for the first time I realise how – well, how rude I must look standing in front of her with my hands on my ears.

I start to shake my head, but then a thought catches me by surprise. After all, I had wanted to show her what Christmas was like when I was a kid. Why shouldn’t she be allowed this one?

The woman leads my daughter to the Tree. She lifts Cynthia up, making my little girl giggle. With the solemnity of an ancient ritual, Cynthia sets the angel in its place. The moment stretches out around me. It’s like my awareness has expanded and I can see us all; Cynthia and me, all these people, gathered together in a little island of light.

A loud bang cuts through the night. Something hisses into our midst. Then a blinding flash sears the world in shadows.

People yell. I can’t see, my head is ringing. Frantically, I call for Cynthia, reaching for her, arms flailing everywhere. The world has turned into Babel as everyone yells at once.

From somewhere there comes a crack. Then another. And another and another and another. Each one like a butcher’s cleaver sinking through meat to find the chopping block. Cries of pain abruptly cut off. And I still can’t find Cynthia.

Something is bundled into my arms, and I feel the comforting weight of my daughter. She’s crying, calling for me even as she’s clutching at my coat.

“Go!” someone yells in my ear. “Go, now!”

I don’t argue. Holding Cynthia tight to my chest, I turn and run. Shapes start to emerge from the blazing after images, shadow blobs that could be people, could be trees. I just focus all of my energy on running. Running as far and as fast as I can.

To either side I can hear others shouting. Some are the Invisibles, screaming in pain and fear in a way I could never shut out and ignore. Others are the sharp, barked commands of the Security Deacons, demanding everyone get on the ground by the word of the Reverend Father!

My lungs begin to burn. I try to force my legs on, muscles screaming at the effort, but I know I can’t keep this up. In my arms, Cynthia is beyond tears. She hangs there, her little heart beating so fast that I can feel it even through her thick winter coat. Vision is leaking slowly back into the world.

Lights flash through the trees, white beams cut to ribbons by their shadowy trunks. I want to look back, to see what’s happening, see if anyone is chasing us. My head starts to turn.

No! Mustn’t look back. Might trip and fall. Might turn to salt. Just run!

But I can’t run anymore.

Stumbling to a halt behind a tree, I let myself slide to the ground. I rock my little girl in my lap and vaguely try to shush her, murmuring comforting sounds that don’t quite manage to be words.

Footsteps sound somewhere close, but I don’t have the strength to try and get away. In my arms, Cynthia shivers.

They grow louder, coming closer. I know I won’t let the Security Deacons take her. No matter how tired I am, no matter that they are the Reverend Father’s own and wear the cross and the book on their sleeve, I won’t let them take her. I tense my whole body, ready for whatever comes next.

The woman, the one who had held Cynthia up to the Tree, sprints past. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t even see us here, tucked away in the forest’s shadows. She runs with her head down, intent on just getting away. Which is why she doesn’t see the Security Deacon as he looms up out of the gloom. His baton connects with her skull with a sickening crack.

Cynthia jerks. I look down to see her staring in horror as the man leans down to start cuffing the woman. I put my hand over Cynthia’s mouth, gently, just to make sure. We stay silent as the man throws the Invisible over his shoulder, lugging her like a sack of potatoes back in the direction of our Tree, where even now the sounds of panic are beginning to die.

---

We don’t go back to the car. I can’t be sure if the Security Deacons were tracking it, or if they had been planning on breaking up that group of people before we ever got here. I’ll have to report it as stolen. Instead, I steer us back to the road by a longer route, carrying Cynthia the whole time. My head is full of thoughts I can’t quite fit into words, weighing the rest of me down. Images from the forest keep playing out in front of my eyes, no matter how much I try to shake myself free of them.

Cynthia is quiet. I’m not sure what to say to her. I mean, what she saw – she’s only four and I took her into that and she heard the shouting, and the people being beaten and yelling to one another, people who had decorated a tree with us. Will she even remember the lights?

“Daddy, you’re squeezing too hard.”

Her little voice brings me back. Slowly, I lower her to the ground and take her hand. “Sorry, little ‘un. You all right?”

She nods and we carry on side by side, and though I can’t see her clearly in the gloom I can’t sense any fear from her. It’s like the bad things are behind us and never happened, but I know these silences of hers, the ones that mean she’s thinking hard about something.

At last, she asks “Why did the bad guys do that?”

“Those weren’t the—” I stop and take a deep breath. “I’ll talk to you about it later, pet. But you can’t go talking to anyone else about it, all right?”

She nods, but how much can I trust in the promise of a four-year-old? “I mean it. If you say something, and someone learns we were out there, then – then the bad guys might come to our house.”

Cynthia gives this some further thought. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” she says. “I’ll make the bad guys go away.”

What can you do except laugh at the simplicity of that? “Thank you, pet. I feel much safer already.”

This was a stupid idea. I never should have done it. And all for what? To try and recapture something that ties us to those heathen, materialist ways?

But for a moment, her world had been full of light. And I can’t help but smile at the thought of her standing there before the Tree, eyes sparkling with the lights I put there for her while all around, others place yet more glittering pieces on the branches to make the Christmas tree shine even brighter.

“Will we go see a light tree again next year?” Cynthia asks.

I can practically feel her gaze on me, those big, grey eyes that only hours before had shone with the lights of the Tree. And something inside me breaks. “Yes,” I say. “Yes. Why not?” I think for a moment and then add, “But maybe next time, we’ll find a way to hide the lights more.”

“Under a bushel.” I glance down at her. She looks surprisingly solemn for a four-year-old child. “That’s where Reverend Father says you hide a light. Under a bushel.”

All I can do is shake my head.

We walk the rest of the way in silence. Back home and then on to the meeting house where the Reverend Father will be preaching to the faithful from his television set.

---

Host Commentary

Faith is a significant aspect of the lives of many of us, and I expect this story will land differently depending on one’s own relationship with religion. Samuel Poots’ twisting of the Christian faith is done deftly and plausibly – exposing not just the potential risks to individual freedom that such a corruption can present, but also the existing acts of hypocrisy that have tarnished both our history and our present. Who has rights, and who does not? Who has a voice? Who is human, and who is damned? For the story’s protagonist, the simplest thing would be to keep his head down, to exist in as much safety as can be salvaged, to weather the storm as long as needed and hope for future change. But where does that hope spring from, if not from those small moments of connection and magic: the wonder of bright lights and talismans against the darkness, the symbolism of spring following winter. There’s an irony here, that what might be termed the true spirit of Christmas is preserved and brought to life for Cynthia through a return to the most pagan roots of the tradition. That appeals to me, too: for me, the best parts of humanity’s faiths are the aspects that are most universal. Kindness, community, compassion and love.