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COUNSEL ASSISTING: You’ve told us about the structure of the compound, about the daily routines and the doctrine sessions. I’d like to move now to the period around your marriage to Charles Townsend. Can you describe the lead-up to the ceremony?

CASSIAN CALYX: Well, the alphas at the compound were wonderful to me. You have to understand that first, otherwise the rest of it doesn’t make sense. After I presented, I was precious to them. The alpha men wouldn’t even let me carry anything heavy. If I reached for something and an alpha was nearby, his hand would get there first. Every time. And it wasn’t…they didn’t make me feel small. They made me feel kept. Protected. Like the whole point of them being strong was so that I could be soft, and that was the correct arrangement of the Universe.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: You were how old at this point?

CASSIAN CALYX: It started when I presented at eight, but by the time I was fourteen, fifteen, it was just the way things were. The alpha boys I’d grown up with would carry my plate to the table for me. Hold branches back when we walked through the orchard. One of them, Matteo, used to give me extra pieces of his bread. Every day he did that, and people in the compound make a big deal about their food, because none of us get near enough what we want and need.

They loved me the way they’d been taught to love a Sacred Vessel, and I loved being loved like that. It was the best feeling in the world.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Can you tell us how the arrangement with Charles Townsend came about?

CASSIAN CALYX: The Family of Light had lived on Charles’s land since before I was born. He’d bought it years before, as some kind of investment, and the Lumineer had negotiated a lease arrangement. I don’t know the details. It’s not one of the things I needed to know about.

What I know is that the lease came up for renewal when I was twenty. And that the Lumineer began having private meetings with a man I’d never seen before. He always arrived in a big black car and wore shoes that clicked on the prayer hall floor. Everyone else was barefoot, that’s why I remember the clicking.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Were you told why he was visiting the compound?

CASSIAN CALYX: No. But I noticed things. The Lumineer was nervous around him, which he isn’t with anyone else. Ever. The senior women rearranged the meal rotation so that the food was better on the days Charles visited. Someone repaired the gate. These were small things, but since the days moved slowly in the compound, it’s really strange when you’ve got people running around trying to look busy for the man dropping by.

And then on my twenty-first birthday, the elders came to my sleeping quarters and told me to dress in white linen and present myself at the Lumineer’s study, now that my Evermate had been chosen. Everyone was smiling except me. I was too nervous. And I walked through the courtyard absolutely certain that Uriel Thompson, he’s the Lumineer’s oldest son, would be standing in that room, because I’d spent three years collecting evidence that he was the one. His scent made my whole body feel like it had been plugged into a wall socket, so I knew he had to be my Evermate.

But when the Lumineer spoke my Evermate’s name out into the world, it was Charles Townsend.

[Pause.]

And my mind just…it went smooth, I was that upset. The Lumineer said Charles was my Evermate, so Charles was my Evermate, because the Lumineer spoke for the Light.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Did you understand what the marriage would involve? Physically?

CASSIAN CALYX: I knew about Receptivity. I’d had years of sessions about it. I knew that my body was a gateway, and that through union with my Evermate I would receive the Light and bear his children. Children by male omegas were treasured. They’re supposed to be healthier, cleverer, more connected to the Light. So bearing children was my highest calling. Everything pointed towards this.

I knew his — that it would go inside me. I knew that part. I’m not — I wasn’t stupid about anatomy. I’d helped with the lambing. I’d seen the rams, so I understood the mechanism.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: But?

CASSIAN CALYX: But nobody told me what it would feel like.

[Pause.]

The sessions were all about the spiritual dimension. The Light entering through your Evermate’s body. The surrender. The opening of yourself to receive. I could recite them now if you asked me to. I had them memorised by the time I was thirteen. But not one of those sessions ever mentioned the word pain.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Can you tell us about the first night?

CASSIAN CALYX: He took me to the house in Bayswater. I’d never been inside a house like that. He took me in his big car. The seats were leather, and I kept touching them because they were so warm, and he said, “Stop that,” without looking at me, so I stopped.

The bedroom had silk cords on the bedposts. I didn’t know what they were for. I thought they were decorative, like the prayer ribbons we tied to the trees at the compound during solstice. I touched one of them and it was beautiful, very red coloured, and very smooth.

He tied my wrists with them. He said it was part of the Kindling. It wasn’t. The Kindling comes before the bond, and it isn’t sex. But he was my Evermate, and I thought he must know a part of the doctrine I hadn’t been taught, so I let him. I was trying very hard to be good. I was a Sacred Vessel, and if I could just be good enough, the Light would come through him and into me and I’d feel the way the doctrine promised I would feel.

[Pause.]

He didn’t prepare me. I don’t mean…I mean he didn’t do anything first. It went in. And my body —

[Pause.]

My body did not open. It did the opposite. Everything clenched, everything tightened, and it was like being torn. I can’t. I don’t have a comparison that isn’t exactly what it was. My hands were tied above my head, and I couldn’t move the whole time.

I didn’t make a sound, though. I remember thinking, very clearly, that it was hurting because I wasn’t being pure enough. That my body was rejecting the Light because of the contamination of my thoughts about Uriel, and him being my Evermate. The pain was my fault, because I couldn’t push Uriel out of my heart.