by Holly Race
‘I’ll never make you do anything,’ Una said. She knew she had to tread delicately.
‘Shall we walk in the gardens then?’ she suggested.
Eventually Ellen nodded. As they’d done so often before, Una tucked Ellen’s arm into the crook of her elbow.
In silence, they walked around the back of the castle. The herb garden emerged like a shy child from the corner of Tintagel. A few apothecaries were tending to the plants, but they didn’t look up.
‘I just … It all got too much, here,’ Ellen said eventually. ‘I wanted to help. I do want to help. It’s so important, what we do, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes. But we’re not far off being squires ourselves. We’re still learning.’
‘But if we miss just one dreamer, if we can’t defeat one single nightmare, then someone dies. We may as well be murderers ourselves.’
‘In Ithr we don’t call police or doctors murderers if they can’t save someone.’
‘You think I’m catastrophising.’
‘I don’t even know what that means, dearling.’
‘Yes, you do.’ Ellen smiled. Una had been protective of her friend since they had first met, but not because she thought that Ellen was a drip. Ellen had proved herself many times over out on patrol. She was a considered warrior, which was exactly what Lancelot needed with hotheads like Una and Clement on board. Ellen would always be the one to find a different approach to tackling a nightmare, or she’d surprise them all when a fight seemed to be lost, channelling whatever monster her fang came from to clinch a victory.
‘If it weren’t for the panic attacks …’ Una began.
‘They’re getting worse.’
‘Do you remember what you did, the first day we met?’ she asked Ellen.
‘That seems so long ago now.’
‘You hissed at Sebastien Medraut. You hissed at the most powerful thane Annwn has seen since Arthur. I couldn’t have done it.’
Ellen laughed, Una laughed. Their merriment echoed against the castle until it seemed as though Tintagel was laughing with them. Beneath Una’s laughter, though, anger brewed. Not with Ellen, but with this whole situation. Ellen was too young to have become a thane when she did. Some people could handle it at fifteen and some couldn’t. Why couldn’t the Founding Thanes have understood that? Why had no one changed the rules over the centuries? It was barbaric. They were going to lose a talented knight because the system was too rigid.
Una took Ellen’s hands in her own.
‘I can’t stop you from leaving if that’s what’s best for you, dearling. But if you stay, I promise that I will find a way of helping you. It might take me some time, but I won’t stop until I do it.’
‘If it was possible, don’t you think they’d have managed it by now?’ Ellen said.
‘They are not me. Have you ever known me to give up?’
Ellen looked at her with a fierce belief. The kind of belief someone puts in a god or a parent; the kind that never recovers once it’s toppled.
‘No. No, I know you’ll find a way.’
44
When Friday comes round I’m still off school on bedrest. With all morning to kill before I need to leave for the funeral, I decide to do some drawing. That plan’s scuppered by Dad coming in with a breakfast treat of eggs Benedict.
‘I don’t think so, love,’ he says, plonking the tray on my desk and plucking the drawings from my hand. ‘If you’re well enough to be drawing, you’re well enough to learn. Might do you good to go back to school.’
I huff and puff, but he’s immovable. I’ll have to find another way of getting to Ramesh’s funeral.
I hatch my plan in the afternoon break. Slipping into the girls’ toilets, I fiddle around in my bag for some make-up. I’m applying white powder to my chin when Lottie Medraut walks in. I freeze, revulsion and anger turning my bones to concrete. She hesitates when she sees me, but then joins me at the mirror. I force myself to carry on as if the daughter of a mass murderer isn’t standing next to me. I wonder whether Lottie knows what kind of man her father really is.
I can feel her side-eyeing me.
‘I’m not trying to look pretty or anything,’ I snap.
‘Of course not. It’s not like that’s what make-up’s for.’
She steps back and studies me more intently as I dab red eyeshadow under my eyes. Then she says something unexpected. ‘You’re trying to skive off school. I used to do that when I wanted to go home and train my puppy. You’re doing it all wrong. Come here.’
And she turns me round and grabs the brush from my hand. Before I can say anything she’s sweeping it across my skin.
‘How sick are you wanting to look?’
‘Umm. I don’t know. Not too much. Just like I have a migraine or something? Maybe a nosebleed?’
‘Okay, hang on.’ She fumbles in her own bag for some lipliner. My embarrassment at her probably being able to see my nostril hair is matched by bafflement. She doesn’t owe me anything. Is she planning on grassing me up as soon as I get permission to leave? Is she in on some elaborate plan of her father’s to trick me into getting suspended?
‘So have you actually been ill these last few days or were you skiving the whole time?’ she asks me.
I want to tell her that the reason I’ve been off school is because her father ordered the murder of a ton of my friends. ‘Actually ill,’ I say instead. ‘I went to hospital.’
‘Damn.’ She draws the word out into two syllables: day-um.
She smiles, and I find myself warily smiling back. ‘There.’ She finishes up, and I look in the mirror. She’s done it perfectly. I look just ill enough, with a smeared bloody streak beneath my nose to suggest I’ve tried to clean it.
‘You could be a make-up artist on movies,’ I tell her.
‘I could be a lot of things,’ she says primly, returning to her own make-up. I have no idea how to reply to such an assured statement.
As she leaves I blurt out, ‘Your dad …’
She waits for me to finish, but I have no idea what I was going to say. Your dad’s planning on mass-brainwashing the country?
‘Ugh, don’t tell me you like him as well,’ she sighs. ‘Look, I’m sure you’re fine, Fern, but seriously, this whole deal with people our age fancying him is just gross.’
‘I don’t …’ I start indignantly, but she’s already gone.
The chemistry teacher takes one look at me and sends me home. ‘Get a taxi, won’t you? You shouldn’t be getting the tube in your state.’
Ah, another demonstration of how little these people know about my family. As if we’d have the money for a taxi across London. As I head for the Underground and scrub Lottie’s make-up from my face I only feel a little guilty. Saying goodbye to Ramesh is more important than science.
The church is a Victorian stone affair in the middle of a huge cemetery, not all that far from the one where my mother is buried. As I approach, I watch a familiar figure hugging a woman who can only be Ramesh’s mother. The figure pulls away gently, then walks down another path. It takes a moment for me to understand what Helena Corday must be doing. Of course, Ramesh’s family are her constituents too. How thoroughly decent, to pay her respects then leave before her presence turns the funeral into a PR exercise.
I approach Ramesh’s mother – an ashen woman with his nose. She hands me an order of service. It’s got a photo of Ramesh’s face on the cover. I can’t help but think of the last time I saw that face. ‘And how did you know Rayensh?’ she asks me.
I take a punt. ‘We met online.’
‘Ah. Well, he did love his games. Thank you for coming. I suppose you might know him better than some of the friends here from school.’ She casts a dark look at a group of teenage girls who are taking sad-face selfies. I want to run away and hug her all at once. It must be awful to know that your child wasn’t actually that popular. Maybe that’s how Dad would act if I died in Annwn. I imagine Lottie and her gaggle turning up. No, Dad would pretend
I was popular at Bosco, turn a blind eye to the fakeness.
I find a pew at the back of the church and look around. Thankfully the hoodie I brought to cover my hair and face isn’t as out of place as I feared it might be. The church is filled with a mix of older people I assume are Ramesh’s family, people from his school looking for an afternoon off and a handful of fellow hoodie wearers who seem to have been genuine friends.
The organist is playing a reedy version of a tune from a movie soundtrack. It’s one of my favourites and it makes me smile and ache at the thought that Ramesh must have loved it as well. I wonder what else we had in common.
Surreptitiously, I look around for anyone else who looks like they’re here on their own. The goth girl who said Ramesh saved her life sits near the front. A few others are scattered around, but I don’t recognise any of them from the thanes. But just as the service starts, the door opens again and someone I do know slips inside. Ollie. He glances at me before sitting at the other end of my pew. We studiously ignore each other for the next hour. His presence helps me not to cry. Ramesh’s dad reads a poem in a dry, wracked voice. Ramesh’s middle sister gives a short speech, looking over the congregation with cold fury, as though challenging us to grieve as much as her.
I know I should be focusing on Ramesh, but seeing his family crumble brings home the reality of what I do every night. So far I’ve been able to keep my two lives separate. It’s been easy to think of Phoebe and Samson and the others as being dreams, in a way. Sitting here, watching Ramesh’s coffin being carried past me, makes what happens in Annwn so much more real.
I decide not to go to the wake. It’s too risky – there are too many questions that could be asked. Ollie, it seems, thinks the same, because we both start down the road towards home instead of veering left like the rest of the congregation.
‘You know what I can’t get my head around?’ Ollie says.
‘What?’
‘That Medraut thinks he’s totally right. In his head, we’re stopping him from saving everyone.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I felt it, in that box of his. To him, anyone who tries to stop him is working against the best interests of humanity. He can’t see it any differently. That was the hardest part about touching that box. Getting his feelings in my head. It was like I was being polluted by all his thoughts.’
I don’t say anything. Once, a different Fern would have made a snippy remark about my brother’s thoughts being polluted already, but I know now that Ollie’s vindictiveness had the same roots as my self-pity – fear. If I’m not a lost cause then neither is he.
As we get closer to home, I realise that our quickest route is going to take us past the spot where Jenny and her gang hang out. I can sense Ollie tensing beside me.
‘Do you think …?’ he begins.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m done with running from that cow.’
I mean it, too. Jenny is a speck now. If I can’t face her, how am I ever supposed to face Medraut?
We continue walking, preparing ourselves for what might happen. When we do see her, swinging her legs against the wall she’s sitting on, I can’t believe how young she looks. When she spots us, she leaps down onto the pavement. Her friends amass behind her.
I stuff my hands in my pockets. So does Ollie. He looks straight ahead, but I meet Jenny’s gaze, and I hold it as we approach. My blood pumps more aggressively; my muscles twitch with awareness. If I were in Annwn right now, I swear I’d have inspyre crackling around me. That’s how powerful I feel. Jenny recognises it too, because although she looks like she wants to start something, she never moves towards us. As we pass her, close enough to see the pins on her bag, I finally break eye contact. I know that she won’t follow us. The spell she once held over me has been broken, and in turn whatever was broken between Ollie and I is starting to heal.
45
We may have faced down Jenny, but that doesn’t mean I can tackle everyone who comes after me. Things are getting worse in Ithr. Medraut’s influence is becoming stronger. His nightmares have done more than take root; they have grown into strong, vigorous trees that block out all light. I take to walking to school, even if it does mean leaving the house at six and forgoing my regular visit to Mum’s grave, because tube journeys are so uncomfortable for me these days. In any case, I don’t feel the same need to sit beside her headstone when I have the portrait of her in my locker in Tintagel.
But it all comes to a head one sweaty April afternoon. It’s rush hour and Stratford is a slalom course of shoppers and locals and commuters at the best of times, so it takes me a while to notice the suited man who keeps glancing back at me as I stomp through the shopping centre. When I accidentally catch his eye, he stops dead in his tracks and I almost plough into him.
‘What do you want?’
He towers over me, his bulk not hidden by a tailored suit.
‘What?’
‘You’re following me.’
I step back, but he steps forward. This close up, I can see that he’s shaking with anger. His fist is gripping his briefcase so tightly it’s turned white.
‘I’m – I’m just going home,’ I stutter.
He snorts and steps forward again, until I am backed up against the glass wall of a shoe shop. Other commuters hurry past us, heads down.
‘You want my wallet, is that it?’ He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and brandishes it in my face. ‘Well, I’m wise to you lot now. In fact …’
He pulls out his phone as well, which in any other situation would make me laugh because he has to do a weird juggle to hold his wallet and briefcase in one hand. He dials 999.
‘Police. A strange-looking creature is harassing me.’
I don’t wait to hear the rest, but dodge past him and leg it. His shouts follow me through crowds of shoppers who look astounded at the girl pushing them out of the way. One woman tries to stop me, obviously assuming I’m a thief.
‘I know what you look like, monster!’ is the last thing I hear before I turn a corner and pass beyond reach.
I run the final mile home. I push the door shut and lock the chain before I let myself collapse against it. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, taking deep breaths to stop myself from crying. When Ollie gets home he has to bang on the door for me to let him in.
‘What’s wrong?’ he says as soon as he sees me. ‘Did Jenny do something?’
‘Medraut.’
I finally give in to the tears that I’d been keeping at bay. Ollie holds my upper arms as though he’d like to hug me but isn’t sure it would be welcomed.
‘Come on,’ he says eventually. ‘Dad’s left us fish pie.’
Ollie puts the TV on while we eat dinner. I feel inexplicably awkward throughout the whole thing. We are not a family that sits in companionable silence in front of a costume drama. The only silence we’ve historically understood is the passive-aggressive kind. But I like the charade, so when we’re finished I take Ollie’s plate and wash it up alongside mine.
‘See, we can be normal,’ he says, perhaps sharing my unease at this new turn of events.
I smile. ‘Speak for yourself.’
The drama ends and the news picks up the gauntlet.
‘And rising star of Government, Sebastien Medraut, today issues a warning in the wake of the mysterious phenomenon that saw over four hundred people die in their sleep …’
‘Turn it off,’ Ollie says, but I don’t make any move towards the remote control. I want to know what he’s up to; I want to know how he’s spinning his mass murder into votes. When the segment comes, though, I can barely watch it.
‘As the families of those who died in their sleep call for research into the phenomenon, MP for Chelsea, Sebastien Medraut, suggests an alternative cause.’
The footage of the newsreader cuts to a clip of Medraut speaking from a podium. Once again, I notice that he has eschewed the traditional microphone, talking quietly and relying on the power of his charisma to silence his au
dience. He talks about the dangers of science, about progress for progress’s’ sake. He subtly suggests, in a way that no one could ever accuse of being unsympathetic to those who died, that perhaps the reason for the deaths lies closer to home. Look at the people who died, he says with everything but his actual words. They were outliers. They were weirdos. Maybe they brought it upon themselves. You have nothing to fear unless you, too, are Different. And when he’s finished speaking, his audience erupts with applause.
As soon as I enter Tintagel, I can feel my own anger join the anger of every other soul in the castle. People whisper and hiss about Medraut’s statement. In the knights’ chamber, Rafe and Amina are crying. Phoebe is sitting in the armchair that was once Ramesh’s, dazedly running her hands through Donald’s fur. All the loss that we’d absorbed has been extracted from our still stinging bodies and flung at us once more. Samson hails me from one corner. ‘Lord Allenby wants to see us. Come on.’ We pick up Ollie on our way out of the chamber.
Lord Allenby is the first truly calm person I’ve seen since entering Tintagel. The captains of the other lores are there already. He gestures for us to take a spare seat. ‘We’ve had intelligence from our friends in Manchester and Edinburgh that Medraut is likely to be planning another attack soon. They’ve noticed unauthorised portals appearing in parts of the cities where dreamers commonly congregate. At the moment they don’t seem to be connected to anywhere else in Annwn, which is puzzling because that shouldn’t be possible. It suggests that it’s Medraut’s doing.’
‘We haven’t noticed anything here, sir,’ Samson says, ‘but that doesn’t mean they’re not in London too. As you know, we haven’t had the numbers to do more than protect dreamers since Ostara.’
‘I know, Samson, and I’m not blaming you in the slightest. Maisie, have you seen anything?’
The captain of the harkers shakes her head. ‘We’ve seen a lot of strange things over the last few months, sir, but we’d have noticed any illegal portals.’
‘That’s what worries me,’ Lord Allenby sighs. ‘There’s been no sign that Medraut has set up fortresses anywhere else in Annwn, and no sign of treitre activity elsewhere either. It makes me think that he’s planning on repeating his attack at Ostara, connecting those portals back to London, so he can move his treitres from Madame Tussaud’s to the rest of the country. But we need to know who his targets are and when he’s going to launch this attack.’