I’m a huge fan of Isabelle Kenyon because she is the most inspirational young woman running her own business and supporting a wide range of talented writers. Consequently I was devastated not to be able to read Isabelle’s The Dark Within Them in time for the blog tour, because I have so many other commitments at the moment. However, Isabelle kindly allowed me to share an extract from The Dark Within Them with you today and I’m delighted to do so.

Published yesterday, 28th March 2024 by Fly on the Wall Press, The Dark Within Them is available for purchase here.

The Dark Within Them

A TIGHT-KNIT MORMON COMMUNITY.

Faith-healer Amber is hopeful about Lehi, the safe Mormon town to which she, her new husband and two kids have just moved.

BODIES BURIED IN THE GARDEN.

After the sudden death of her daughter, Amber discovers the community will do anything to keep its secrets.

ONE FAMILY DIVIDED.

When nothing feels certain anymore, will Amber take a leap of faith, for love?

An Extract from The Dark Within Them

THE MEETING, 11TH MAY, 2015

CHAD

This was the kind of meeting all diaries were cleared for. Chad stood central in a horseshoe of bodies, an unlikely orchestrator. The floor was his but his tongue lay slack, hiding behind his lower teeth. There was a tremor in his wife’s shoulders which made him roll back his own, and clear his throat for silence.

Each sound in the Temple reverberated off the pristine white surfaces.

“Thank you for being here today,” he began. “I have great faith in the church community and its advice. Hell, we’ve all stood where I am now at one point or another, I’m sure. And today it’s my turn to ask for your help, with our Gilly.”

The open windows seeped humid twilight into the hall and beads of sweat formed under his cotton shirt. He talked slowly, using his hands as an offering. Holding his palms open showed he had nothing to hide: he’d been taught that by his uncle Jim.

His audience gazed, unblinking. He wiped clammy paws on his jeans. He was forgetting people knew him here—since he could wobble around the neighbourhood on pudgy toddler legs—and that earned him a kind of immunity from judgement.

“Gilly’s fifteen. Young. She’s…she’s mostly a good kid. Anything bad in her? It didn’t come from her mothering. That’s not to blame.” He nodded with what he felt was warmth at his wife, her cheeks betraying a shade of fuchsia. “Perfect mother in my Amber. She made sure those kids grew up in a loving, attentive environment, and they wanted for nothing—don’t doubt that. But since Gilly moved to Lehi, with young Ivan and their mom, well, she’s been finding getting settled tough. This is a good neighbourhood—we all know that—and Amber and I, we’ve been wanting them to make friends. And these days…well, kids are always on their phones, right? Texting nonstop. She was texting this boy, we discovered, and erm,” he paused and pulled on his earlobe, “she being underage, we looked at those messages, you know? And that’s when we saw the pictures.” He looked away from his wife’s shrinking form. “To be sending those kind of images to a boy—outside of the church—well, we’re all kind of cut up about it. There’s a kind of darkness in my home these days.”

He breathed out, realising his fingernails had been digging so hard into his palms that they had left indents…He flexed his hands, feeling for the back of a chair to sink into.

“Thank you, Chad.” Brett’s eyes crinkled, kind. “This is exactly the right space to discuss these kind of family dynamics in.” The circle nodded at these words, mumbling approval. “You’ve done the right thing.”

Amber wasn’t looking at him. He shuffled his chair closer to reach for her hand, but she pretended not to notice.

“Would you like to offer your thoughts also, Amber?” Brett’s voice guided all eyes towards her. As a leader, Brett was always calm and balanced in this way—it was why Chad had always looked up to him.

“Well,” she adjusted the hem of her skirt. “Chad’s account just about sums it up. Gilly’s…unsettled. It may be…that God is testing us, as a family.”

“We all have our tests,” Chad agreed. “Marriage is a gift from God, and so are children…”

“…but you’ve struggled,” Amber murmured.

A muscle in his jaw clenched. “As I was saying. I’ll be the first to say I’ve struggled to father Amber’s kids. To connect, I guess. Not having done this parenting thing before.”

A few members of the group shuffled in their seats but Brett began a slow clap, which the room adopted after a beat.

“We appreciate that level of honesty, Chad. And we’re here for that struggle with you.”

The slow warmth spread from his belly and he gave Brett a lopsided smile. Hadn’t Brett always understood him?

Amber raised her voice. “What would you have us do?” she asked Brett and a hush fell.

“First, let us pray,” Brett said. All of them crossed their arms over their chest and began to recite familiar words, before the voices petered out. “Now. This is a prime example: Gilly’s an excellent candidate for conversion therapy. Gilly’s had a troubled childhood…all that travelling, a single mother…”

Brett shook his head slowly. “The death of your late husband is not your fault, Amber, clearly, but with that lack of a family unit…well I feel it’s that absence of structure which has led Gilly to the devil.” Chad felt his leg twitch like a startled horse and the group recoiled, some softly crying out. Just hearing the name was enough to allow fear to creep in. “Thankfully, my conversion therapy reverses that influence.”

Amber sat up straight. “…Reverses? What does your therapy involve?”

Melanie, Chad’s oldest friend and neighbour, leaned into the circle. “Brett is the founder of this treatment, Amber. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. So you’ve nothing to fear from it.”

Chad observed his wife watching Brett, who cracked a lazy smile. “It’s just like a baptism, Amber. A water-based therapy. The elements have much to teach us about healing, don’t you think?”

Chad himself hadn’t heard much about the therapy, just that it was new, and not practiced in other Temples as of yet. But he had seen Brett’s first patient, Peggy-Sue from number nine, go from fishnets and eyeliner to long dresses and a career in administration. She didn’t talk much now, mind, but the change had apparently significantly reduced her mother’s blood pressure and restored harmony. And Brett’s advice came from the heart.

That was all he needed.

He cracked a calloused knuckle. “When can we start?”

****

Oo! I don’t know about you, but I have a feeling this is not going to go well! It’s made me all the more determined to get to The Dark Within Them as soon as I can.

About Isabelle Kenyon

Isabelle Kenyon is a Manchester writer and the author of 5 chapbooks including Growing Pains (Indigo Dreams).  She has had work and articles published internationally and newspapers such as The Somerville Times and The Bookseller.

For further information, follow Isabelle on Twitter/X @kenyon_isabelle, visit her website, or find Isabelle on Instagram and Facebook.

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