Half Bad

by Sally Green

  I check the bedrooms.

  I don’t know what I expected but I was hoping Annalise would at least be here. She’s not. Mercury must have taken her to her castle, and I don’t know where that is. Is she still asleep? Maybe she woke her . . . but I know she won’t have done.

  I put on my jacket and look at the clock in the kitchen. I can work out the time if I try hard enough.

  It’s later than I thought. Just a bit more than ten minutes to midnight. I think that’s right.

  Or just a bit less. I’ll reach Mercury in time if I run.

  I dash outside and take two steps in the direction of the shots. Then I am stopped; I can’t move forward.

  The snow is falling around me but the flakes are slowing too . . . and then they stop. The snowflakes hang in the blackness of the night air.

  Everything around me has stopped, and all I can do is drop to my knees in thanks.

  Three Gifts

  My father.

  I know it’s him. Only he can make time stop.

  And I’m kneeling in stillness and silence. There are snowflakes hanging in the air, veils upon veils, and the ground around me is snow-covered and gray in the gloom. I can’t even see the forest ahead of me.

  And then there’s a gap.

  Him.

  A darker figure in the darkness, flakes of snow hanging in front of him.

  He comes closer, flicking a snowflake out of his way with his finger and blowing another gently as he breathes out. He comes closer still, walking not flying, the snow up to his knees.

  He stops in front of me, sweeps the snow away with a sideways kick, and comes down to my level, sitting cross-legged a few arm-lengths away.

  I can’t see his face, only his silhouette. I think he’s in a suit.

  “Nathan, at last.”

  His voice is calm and sounds like mine only more . . . thoughtful.

  “Yes,” I say, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine but like a little boy’s.

  “I’ve wanted us to meet. For a long time I’ve wanted that,” he says.

  “And I’ve wanted it too.” Then I add, “For seventeen years.”

  “Is that what it is? Seventeen years . . .”

  “Why didn’t you come before now?”

  “You’re angry with me.”

  “A little.”

  He nods.

  “Why didn’t you come before?” I sound pathetic but I’m so exhausted that I don’t care.

  “Nathan, you are just seventeen. That’s very young. When you’re older you’ll realize that time can move differently. Slower sometimes . . . faster occasionally.” He circles his arm round now and swirls the snowflakes until they form a strange sort of galaxy that drifts up and up until it disappears.

  And it’s amazing. Watching my father, his power. My father, here, so close to me. But still, he should have come years ago.

  “I don’t care how time moves. I said, why didn’t you come before now?”

  “You are my son, and I expect a certain amount of respect from you . . .” He seems to breathe in and then out with a long exhalation that disperses a few more snowflakes hovering low to the ground in front of him.

  “And you are my father and I expect a certain amount of responsibility from you.”

  He makes a sort of laugh. “Responsibility?” His head inclines to the right and then straightens again. “It’s not a word I’m used to dealing with . . . And you? Are you familiar with respect at all?”

  I hesitate but say, “Not that much up to now.”

  He waits, picks up some snow and sprinkles it from his fingers.

  He says, “Mercury was going to give you three gifts, I assume.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she want in return?”

  “Some information.”

  “That sounds cheap for Mercury.”

  “She wanted something else as well.”

  “Let me guess . . . it’s not hard: she wanted my demise. Mercury is very predictable.”

  “I’ve no intention of killing you. I told her that.”

  “And she accepted it?”

  “She seemed to think I’d change my mind.”

  “Ah! I’m sure she would have fun trying to change it.”

  “You believe me then? I won’t kill you.”

  “I’m not sure what to believe yet.”

  And I’m not sure what to say. You never ask someone to give you three gifts. Never. And I cannot ask him, but if he has come now, on my seventeenth birthday, then he must be here for that. Surely?

  “What information did she want?”

  “Stuff about the Council and my tattoos. I haven’t told her anything.”

  “I’m not fond of tattoos.”

  I stick my hand out, show him the one on my hand and the one on my finger. They are a blue-black and my skin looks milky white in the darkness. “They planned to use my finger to make a witch’s bottle. To force me to kill you.”

  “Lucky for me that you still have your finger. Lucky for you that you didn’t tell Mercury. I think she would have taken your finger.”

  “She wanted the Fairborn too.”

  “Ah, yes . . . where is the Fairborn?”

  “Rose stole it from Clay but . . . things went wrong. She was shot by the Hunters. I lost the Fairborn.”

  Silence.

  He looks down, pinches his nose between his eyes. “And inevitably this is where I find things a little harder to believe. Where exactly did you lose it?”

  “In the forest on the way here.” And the pain in my side stabs me so that I shiver. “I was poisoned or something.”

  “What’s happened? Are you hurt?” he asks, leaning toward me. He sounds concerned. Concerned! And I want to cry with relief.

  “A Hunter shot me. I heal it but it keeps coming back. The bullet’s still in there.”

  “We need to get it out.”

  “It hurts.”

  “No doubt.” He sounds amused now. “Show me.”

  I open my jacket and shirt.

  “Take them off. Lie on the snow.”

  As I take my shirt off he gets up, walks around me, and picks up the knife Gabriel gave me.

  “What are these?” And he traces his fingers over my back. The touch of his skin on mine is strange. His hands are as cold as the snow.

  “Scars.”

  “Yes.” He laughs again but I can only just hear. “Who made them?”

  “Kieran O’Brien, a Hunter. A long time ago.”

  “Some think a millennium isn’t a long time.” He runs his rough palm over my back and his touch is strangely gentle.

  “So . . . Lie back. Keep still.”

  He doesn’t hurry.

  I clench my jaw; my flesh feels like it’s being ripped off my rib, like pulling chicken meat off a bone. The meat is attached surprisingly strongly.

  I start to count. After nine the numbers become swear words.

  Then the pain stops.

  “The bullet was lodged behind the bone. It was hard to reach. You can heal now.”

  I do and I can tell he is watching how quickly my skin knits together.

  I’m buzzing; already my healing is better with the bullet out of me.

  I start to push myself up and my father grabs my hair, pulling my head up and forcing me onto my front. His knee is in my back and the knife is at my throat. He strokes the flat of the blade over my skin, then turns it so the edge is pressed against my neck. I’m not cut yet.

  “Your life is mine, Nathan.”

  The blade is so close that I daren’t swallow. I’m arching back so far I could snap.

  “However, I’m in a giving mood, so please accept your life as a gift from me today.”

  He lets my hair go and my head and body d
rop forward. And I’m on my hands and knees in the snow wondering, Is he going to do it? Does that count as a gift? What time is it now?

  I turn and he’s sitting cross-legged near me. He’s in a suit but he isn’t wearing a tie; his top button is undone. His face is darkness.

  I put my shirt on and sit cross-legged opposite him.

  He holds the bullet out to me. “For you . . . another gift. Perhaps it will remind you to be more careful around Hunters.”

  The bullet is round, a metallic green, with markings cut into it.

  “Fain science mixed with witch magic. Not elegant, but like so many things, it can still kill you.”

  The way he says it I know he’s talking about me.

  “I won’t kill you. Mary told me about your vision. I won’t kill you.”

  “We’ll see.” He leans toward me, his voice low. “Time will tell.”

  “Mercury won’t give up, though.”

  “She thinks I wronged her. And I suppose I did. And she will think I led the Hunters here, but you can tell her I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to her. The Hunters are very good, Nathan. They don’t need me to help them. Tell her that they have found a way of detecting her cuts in space. She will have to be more careful in future.”

  “I’ll tell Mercury, if I see her. But . . .”

  Doesn’t he want me to go with him?

  Silence. Stillness. Snowflakes waiting.

  “What now?” I ask.

  “Between me and you?”

  I nod.

  “I’m not a great believer in prophecies, Nathan, but I am a cautious man. So I suggest you keep away from Hunters and take care not to lose your finger, as you say that you have lost the Fairborn.”

  “But . . .”

  And I can’t ask him if I can go with him. He’s my father. But I can’t ask. He would say if he wanted me.

  “Why did you never come for me?”

  “I thought you were doing fine. I caught glimpses in visions. You did well enough on your own. I saw nothing after they took you away. They had you well hidden, even from visions. But you escaped. I’m pleased about that, Nathan, for both our sakes.”

  He looks at his wrist but I don’t see a watch there.

  “It’s time for me to go.”

  He pulls a ring from his finger and takes my right hand, slides it on to the index finger.

  “For you, my father’s ring, and his father’s before him.”

  He takes the knife and cuts his palm and holds his hand out.

  “My blood is your blood, Nathan.”

  And his hand is there, his flesh, his blood. Carefully I take his hand with both of mine. His skin is rough and cold, and I raise his hand to my lips and drink his blood. And as I suck and swallow I hear the strange words that he whispers in my ear. His blood is strong and sweet and warm in my throat and my chest and stomach, and the words curl into my head, intertwine with my blood, making no sense but wrapping me in what I know, and I smell the earth and feel its pulse through my body, through my father’s body and from his father before and his father before that, and at last I know who I am.

  As I let his hand go I look up and see his eyes.

  My eyes.

  Marcus gets to his feet and says, “I take my responsibilities as a father seriously.”

  And as he moves back, the snowflakes begin to slowly, slowly fall again. The wind strengthens, buffeting me and picking up the snow from the ground. I can only just hear Marcus say, “I hope we meet again, Nathan.”

  And the snowflakes are falling more thickly, and the wind has built to a gale, and the snow is a white blur around the two of us.

  The snowflakes fly in my face and he’s gone.

  * * *

  The ring is heavy. It is thick, warm. I can’t make out the shapes on it in the poor light. I turn it around my finger and feel its weight and then I kiss it and whisper thanks. I am a witch.

  I have met my father. Too briefly, but I have met him. And I think he must know that I don’t mean to kill him. He would not have given me three gifts if he believed that. My head feels clear, good. It’s an unusual feeling. I realize I’m smiling.

  Then the sky above me fills with lightning and thunder drums the air.

  Running

  I turn back to the cottage door and Mercury is there, in gray chiffon, her hair only slightly more wild than normal, but she is in a fury and she swirls and crackles with lightning.

  “I get the feeling that you have met your father.” Her voice has lost its slow measured pace and is screeching at me.

  “Yes.”

  “He gave you three gifts?”

  “Yes.”

  “And led the Hunters here.”

  “No. The Hunters found you without any help from him. Marcus said that they have found a way of detecting your cuts. He wanted me to warn you to be more careful.”

  A bolt of lightning hits the ground near my feet. “You should be more careful too. Where are Rose and Gabriel?”

  “I don’t know where Gabriel is. Rose was killed by the Hunters.”

  Mercury screams.

  “You knew it was dangerous. You sent her in there.”

  “And yet you survived. Do you have the Fairborn?”

  Her eyes are black hollows.

  “No.”

  “But Rose got it from Clay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it? Does Marcus have it?”

  I hesitate but then say, “Yes, he took it.”

  She screams again and a small whirlwind swirls around her and then stops abruptly.

  “It seems that all I have is Annalise.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Safe. For now. Do you want her back?”

  “Of course.”

  “Bring me your father’s head. Or his heart. I’ll accept either.”

  Mercury spins around in a cloud of gray, a mini tornado, her face appearing and disappearing in its calm center. The tornado flies up the valley in the direction of the glacier.

  The air is calm again, the snowstorm over. It’s quiet.

  Will the Hunters be able to find the cottage in the dark? Of course, they’re Hunters.

  Then I hear the buzz of their phones. They’re here.

  A shot, and another.

  But I’m already running. And running is even better than before. I’m stronger, faster, more in tune. The night is black but I can find my way with ease. And I know where I’m going. I’m going to find my friend. Gabriel.

  Acknowledgments

  I started writing rather late in my life, not very long ago in 2010, and did my best to hide this new obsession (as it quickly became) from my friends and relatives. I certainly had no intention of making myself the object of ridicule when the most I’d ever written before was a note to the milkman. However, it didn’t take long before my husband noticed that I was up to something in our little office room until 2 a.m. every night. I decided to be brave and come clean.

  “I’m writing a novel.”

  I waited. Would he laugh? Tell me I was being ridiculous?

  “Oh! Okay. Sounds good.”

  Not the reaction I expected, but just what I needed. I could not have written Half Bad without his support and quiet encouragement.

  After that I became a little bolder and confided in a couple of friends, who then had to bear the brunt of my tedious conversations about writing. Lisa and Alex were (and still are) amazingly good listeners, never yawned to my face, and always managed to say, “Really?” in the right places (and were early readers of my manuscripts).

  Thanks as well to my other readers. I’m so grateful for their time and honesty. David gave me lots of advice on my original novel. Mollie was the first teenager to read Half Bad—that she chose to spend her time with Nathan I take as the perfect comp
liment. My Open University buddies, Gillian and Fiona, have been stars, giving me full and frank feedback.

  I sent Half Bad to Claire Wilson at Rogers, Coleridge and White in January 2013, hoping she would be interested in acting as my agent. She was. She has championed Half Bad wonderfully and advised and guided me through the strange world of publishing. Claire had rejected my first novel, saying it wasn’t edgy enough, and I am so grateful, as without that kick Half Bad would not have been written.

  I have an impressive array of people working with me at Puffin, all of whom have been a joy. Ben Horslen, my editor, should win an award for enthusiasm (and tact) and with him are a great bunch of people: junior editor Laura Squire; Tania Vian-Smith and Gemma Green and the Marketing and Publicity departments; designer Jacqui McDonough; and Zosia Knopp and her fantastic Rights team (along with The Map). Thanks to everyone at Puffin.

  I also feel incredibly privileged to have Ken Wright as my editor at Viking in the United States, along with his associate editor Leila Sales. He also has a great team of people but in particular I have to thank Deborah Kaplan and her designers for the gorgeous cover art.

  While writing Half Bad I revisited some of the literature from my teenage years (before Young Adult was invented), notably Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which reassured me that Nathan’s time in the cage was bearable.

  The someone who said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them,” was Ernest Hemingway.

  I was searching for a name to give the Fairborn and was inspired by the Fairbairn-Sykes knife, information about which I found on Wikipedia.

  I haven’t seen the film Lawrence of Arabia for years, but the scene with the matches is one of the many that have stayed in my head.

  As for Hamlet—well, if I’m honest I read it many years ago and have never seen the play on stage (I have watched a film version), but the line “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” was a key element in the forming of my story. While Shakespeare hasn’t taken up a huge amount of my time over the last ten years, being a mother has, and I often watched my son and pondered the nature vs. nurture question: “Why does he do that?” “What makes him him?” “What makes any of us the way we are?” These questions undoubtedly influenced my writing.