1. The Feral Disciples

Welcome to this first instalment of Drafts, the part of Notes From a Small Planet where I share new pieces of forthcoming work!

“The Feral Disciples” is the first chapter in Wild Life, my new novel coming out with Random House Canada (and hopefully elsewhere—let’s all cross our fingers) in spring 2025.

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Josiah is kneeling on the stone floor of the chapel, his forehead pressed to the great slab beneath him, when it happens. He is cold and alone, and then the air around him is warm and smells of animal and when he looks up the creature nods to him like a king, and calls him by name.

He is dreaming, or God is here, finally, after all these years and days.

“Josiah,” the creature breathes out. The voice is warm and somehow rusty, like air in a tomb meeting the sun for the first time. The way that the air must have felt when God rolled back the stone for the Messiah. “Josiah.”

Josiah trembles, hoping for more than this. He has been scrubbing the stones of the chapel for hours in the dark, marking his progress by the changing of the stone beneath his fingertips. This stone, heavy with grime—now the same stone, free and clear of dirt, released by God’s dogged forgiveness.

He is so tired. Outside, the sky is lightening, the sun about to rise. He dips his head against the stone again. The smell of animal gets stronger. He left his spectacles behind because Father Josip believes they are both unnecessary and also bad for the chapel. God, he says, will let Josiah see everything he needs to see. If Josiah cannot see the dirt on the stones, he must bend closer, he must allow God to be his eyes. He must believe.

“You rely on your spectacles,” Father Josip says, “when you should rely on God. To be a disciple of the Lord means to have discipline, Josiah. To know what is needed, and when.”

Josiah squints at the animal in front of him again. The light has shifted and the creature is harder to see. A tiger, perhaps? But it doesn’t have stripes, as far as Josiah can tell, and tigers have stripes. Josiah knows this because of the book in Father Josip’s study, the encyclopaedia lugged across the wasteland when the Brothers brought him to Kezhemskoe. The encyclopaedia is not forbidden to him, but Josiah is only allowed to read it on Saturdays, after prayer and his chores are all complete. He reads the encyclopaedia too much and the Bible too little. This is what Papa had told Father Josip earlier in the year, when he came calling about the expedition.

“Josiah can go,” he said as they sat in the parlour after dinner. “I would be proud to see my son read Scriptures to the unsaved in faraway lands.”

Josiah had not wanted to go. But a few short days later, Father Josip came back for him in a covered wagon, along with three other men—Brother Luca, Brother Gregory, and a young man whose name was Marcus.

Marcus was mute, and touched by God. He’d spoken all his life and then three weeks earlier, his voice had disappeared just before he’d set out on the expedition with the men. When Josiah climbed into the wagon Marcus smiled at him, then reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

“May God be with you, always,” Papa called after them. “May God show you beautiful things, Josiah. May He make a work of your new life.”

His father did not expect him to come home, Josiah realized. His father didn’t want him to.

“May God make a work of my new life,” Josiah repeated. As the wagon moved away, he watched his father recede until he was a fuzzy shape blurring into the corners of the landscape. He imagined that his father raised his hand to wave goodbye and then turned and went back into the house, and forgot him. All that Papa had would go to Obadiah now—obedient eldest son who spoke only to people, just as God had intended.

Except that God is speaking to Josiah now, right here. God, who has never said his name before.