Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival. Kristina Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ the envy of every other girl at camp. She came from an aristocratic French family and exuded a sort of natural grace with the delicate features of a porcelain doll, a little bit like I imagined my mother had looked at the same age. But she was also very timid and shy, which is probably why she felt at ease with me.

      ‘Oh, gossip. What’s going on?’

      Another new friend, Sienna, trotted towards us, pulling back her dark hair. She and I had become very close over the last few days, but in this instance I wasn’t so pleased to see her – she was Caleb’s sister.

      ‘Somebody was dancing with your brother Caleb last night,’ blurted Jeanette.

      ‘Oh, that’s old news. I thought you had something juicy.’

      I was so relieved Sienna wasn’t being strange about it.

      ‘In fact,’ Sienna went on, ‘I spoke to the man himself just before, and he seemed rather pleased with himself.’

      ‘Ooohhhhhhh …’

      I knew where Jeanette was going and cut her off.

      ‘You can calm down. Nothing happened.’

      This just fuelled Jeanette’s curiosity.

      ‘Really? I thought you liked him.’

      ‘I do. I really do. Sorry, Sienna.’ I touched her arm in one of those ‘I know it’s a bit gross talking about your brother like this’ ways. ‘I do like him. But nothing happened, I promise. He walked me to my room and we said goodnight. It wasn’t weird. It was just … nice.’

      ‘Urgh. The “N” word.’ Jeanette really couldn’t help herself at moments like this. ‘He must really like yooouuuu,’ she said, sending her voice into a high pitch that climbed with her knowing eyebrows.

      When the final day of camp came round everybody was a bit demob happy. We only had one lecture – a kind of round-up of the week’s lessons on fighting the lures of Satan.

      Afterwards I was sitting on the grass with the girls when Caleb sauntered over.

      ‘Hi, Natacha.’

      Jeanette pulled an ‘Oooohhhhh’ face silently behind his back.

      ‘Hi, Caleb. You want to take a walk?’ I surprised myself with my boldness, but I was desperate to escape Jeanette’s antics.

      ‘Sure.’

      We went down through the woods to the lake. I didn’t really know what for, but I was just happy to be alone with him before we had to go our separate ways.

      He took my hand in his as we walked along the shore.

      ‘It’s so beautiful here,’ I said, taking in the stunning view one last time.

      ‘I know what else is beautiful.’

      I turned my head back to Caleb, catching his soft lips with mine. My head spun with the sheer joy of it and for a moment I thought I might topple into the lake. It made me cling to him even tighter. I could have stayed there for ever, except some other kids came crunching along the shoreline.

      We pulled our heads apart with a little smile.

      ‘I guess this is goodbye, Natacha. For now.’

      On the drive home I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. I ran my finger over my lips where his had touched mine, and hid a little smile.

      I was still smiling when I walked into our kitchen. My father was sitting at the dining table poring over documents.

      ‘Hi, Daddy.’ I ran over to him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘What you doing?’

      He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, slouching in the chair.

      ‘It’s my mother’s last will and testament. She died some years ago. I never knew. My sister just told me.’

      ‘What?’ I had never met the woman, yet somehow I instantly felt her loss. For the first time ever I thought about our other relatives. Who were they? Did they know we existed? Did they believe in Jesus like us? I had no idea what they looked like, where they lived or what kind of jobs they did. They were my blood relatives but I knew nothing about them. That realisation saddened me.

      Then over dinner he made a shock announcement – we were going to pioneer a new country where The Family wasn’t known. The place we were going was called Réunion.

      I didn’t really know what to think. My mother looked perfectly happy about it. She patted her belly where her ninth baby was growing inside. ‘And you would like to be born into an exciting new mission, wouldn’t you, little one?’

      Matt, Marc, Vincent and I looked at each other a little bit stunned. Since moving to France my parents had been pretty much cast adrift by The Family, especially financially. If they’d wanted we could have easily left for good. The last thing we expected was for them to drag us half way round the world to be missionaries again.

      Only Vincent could manage the obvious question.

      ‘Where’s Réunion, Daddy?’

      ‘It’s a little island near Madagascar. It’s a colony so they speak French, and we can get welfare there so we won’t starve either. They don’t know God and there are no Family members, so we will be true pioneers for the Lord. Sounds great, doesn’t it?’

      I had very mixed feelings as we boarded the plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Arriving here two and a half years ago I had been a terrified child, expecting to be murdered the moment we landed. France had been unexpectedly kind, allowing us a glimpse of normality – school and a normal family life, two things I wasn’t ready to leave behind.

      But as the plane descended over Réunion I felt like I was in a dream. Its rugged volcanic peaks and unspoilt coastline were matched by the inhabitants, such as the witch doctor we nearly ran over in our car as he prepared an offering of freshly slaughtered chicken, rum and fruit in the middle of the road. I’ll never forget leaving the airport and seeing a road sign warning of waterfalls ahead. We all laughed at the silliness of it, but then as we turned the next bend, there it was – a waterfall right in the middle of the road.

      Friendly locals warned us from the start not to be fooled into a false sense of security by the undeniable beauty of the island. We were told to watch out for gangs of desperately poor teenagers roaming the streets, drinking and looking for opportunities to enrich themselves at someone else’s expense. When my dad heard this he immediately slapped a ban on my going anywhere without his or a brother’s supervision. The black magic, or gris gris, that Réunion’s cultural life ran on was spoken of in hushed tones in our house.

      Our new home was a small concrete house surrounded by sugar-cane fields from where my father would conduct his missionary work, heading out daily to surrounding villages to spread the message. I was relieved that we were the first ones there and didn’t have to move into an established commune, as I’d had my fill of bullying children and cruel surrogate parents. My father home schooled me, something he did with a great deal of impatience. When not taking my lessons, most of my time was dedicated to helping run the house or look after my younger siblings. It was very lonely for a СКАЧАТЬ