Blinded By The Light
A gripping thriller about a teenage boy sucked into the dark world of a cult.Eighteen-year-old Joe is bored. Stuck at home after a bout of glandular fever, all his friends have left Manchester and gone to university, leaving Joe with nothing but his rather annoying family for company. When he meets Kate and Nick on the train, something about them appeals to him. So he goes to see them at their commune, a farm in rural Todmorden.Gradually, Joe’s life starts to make sense. With the White Ones he is wanted, and his life has a purpose. When he meets Bea at the farm, he really feels that his life is complete, and he decides to leave his family and live with the White Ones forever.But there is something sinister about Fletcher, the Todmorden White Ones leader. Fletcher seems obsessed with Joe – convinced that he is a Perfect, and someone to be venerated. A dramatic trip to the wildest reaches of Orkney will show Joe his destiny – and reveal some shocking truths.
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BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
SHERRY ASHWORTH
Published by HarperCollins Children’s Books
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by CollinsFlamingo 2003
Text copyright © Sherry Ashworth 2003
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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Source ISBN: 9780007123360
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007394944
Version: 2016-05-19
Contents
1. From The Preface, Rendall’s Book of Prayers
2. From Rendall’s Parables: The Tale of the Traveller
3. From Rendall’s Laws Governing Purity: Abstinence
4. From Rendall’s Book of Prayers: The Morning Service
5. From Rendall’s Parables: The Tale of the Hungry Child
6. From Rendall’s Parables: The Tale of the Brothers
7. From Rendall’s Laws Governing Purity: Alternate Sense Deprivation
8. From Rendall’s Book of Prayers: The Induction Service
9. From Rendall’s Parables: The Tale of the Stallion
10. From Selected Commentaries on Rendall: “They were male and female together.”
11. Letter to all Cell Leaders: From Colin Rendall
12. From Rendall’s Laws Governing Purity: Degrees of Passion
13. From Rendall’s Laws Governing Purity: antimatter
The Orcadian April 5th, 1969
The bodies of Matthew Chalmers, 20, and Trevor Norrington-Smith, 21, were recovered today from Hoy Sound.
The young men, together with another friend, Colin Rendall, were students at Cambridge University, holidaying in Orkney. The accident occurred on Saturday evening, when the three men took a boat out for a midnight row. Rendall managed to stay afloat until he was picked up by Angus Middleton, 66, a retired fisherman, who had witnessed the capsizing from his bedroom window. Rendall was flown to Aberdeen, where he is recovering in hospital with his father by his bedside.
Police are refusing to comment on how the accident could have happened. The inquest will take place in Kirkwall after Easter.
The pain and struggle ceased. I was travelling without effort, moving towards the Light. Where there had been terror, there was now beauty, and peace beyond all understanding. An angel swathed in brightness stood by a table. On it was the Book. White pages, whiter words, thousands upon thousands of them. In essence they said, be free, be pure, do not despair of Perfection. The Book remained inscribed in my head and heart. My purpose was clear.
Didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I was pissed off, to tell you the truth. I’d been on my own since two o’clock when Phil had to go to band practice and left me in the middle of campus.
“Great seeing you, Joe,” he’d said, thumping me in the ribs. I thumped him back even harder. We grinned at each other.
“The sixty or sixty-one’ll take you near the station,” he’d said. “Come up again. Any time, like.”
“Sure,” I said. I thought, I might, but then again, I might not. I slung my overnight bag over my shoulders and set out for the bus stop.
Hell, it wasn’t Phil’s fault. If all had gone according to plan I wouldn’t have been in Birmingham, or even in England for that matter. I would have been in a village in Kenya digging, or teaching kids, or doing some other GAP voluntary work. But just after my A2s, my throat swelled up like a balloon. I lay in bed for weeks – glandular fever.
At first I was too ill to care. Life was just Mum changing damp sheets, pain, nightmarish dreams. Then I was as weak as a baby. When Tasha came to see me she looked taken aback. I date the end of our relationship from that moment. But who could blame her? I was hardly sex on legs. I couldn’t even struggle on to my legs for that matter. Tasha shoved some flowers down by my bed, pecked me on the cheek, and stressed a bit about her forthcoming results.
