Her experiences in its compound have left her in a state of severe distress and unable to trust outsiders and the authorities. Moonbeam’s parents joined the Lord’s Legion when she was very young. Perhaps she is visualising an early memory of her life before living in the community. She picks up a paintbrush and creates scenes of a small house by the sea. The teenager is unable to speak about the disaster where many people died.
In the aftermath of the destruction of the Legion’s compound, Moonbeam is recovering in a Secure Unit in Odessa, Texas. It is not clear how her family of Brothers and Sisters – the Lord’s Legion community – reached this devastating and tragic crisis. Coming to the book raw and without preconceptions I was quickly immersed in an intense atmosphere of fear, suspicion and confusion. The disjointed memories of survivor Moonbeam are filled with gunshots and burning fire. I picked up After the Fire without reading the blurb or having prior knowledge of its subject. “The things I’ve seen are burned into me, like scars that refuse to fade”.
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