by Holly Race
‘Daddy, I’m s-sorry,’ she stutters in her honeyed voice. ‘I just …’
Medraut says nothing as he approaches her.
‘Daddy, no, I only wanted – Daddy, please, no!’
Medraut reaches out to her, and everything goes black.
Lottie’s screams fade in again. I can’t help but push to see more – what did he do to her? I must be able to see that if I just try hard enough …
‘Fern!’ Ollie shouts suddenly. ‘Fern, stop it! What are you doing? Stop, for God’s sake!’
I pull away from Lottie and watch in horror as she sinks back against the bench, her eyes wide, her mouth opening and shutting like one of the fish in the lake next to us. I examine her for blood, but can’t see any. I feel my own face – I’m fine. I look up at Ollie, wondering why he made me stop when I was so close to getting more answers. But Ollie isn’t looking at me. He’s looking behind me. I turn, dread pooling in my stomach.
Lord Allenby and Samson stand at the edge of the lawn. Their horrified eyes are fixed on me.
Ollie has betrayed me yet again.
47
Lord Allenby might be the one dragging me by my arm. He might be the one who throws me into his office so hard I land against the wall with a painful crunch. But I am every bit as furious as him; every bit as up for a fight. The lot of them can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. Allenby. Samson. Ollie. Especially Ollie. The way he ducked away the moment Lord Allenby showed up, avoiding my gaze, staying silent when he could have told Lord Allenby that it was his idea. This fresh treachery prickles through my blood like poison.
‘Torturing a dreamer, Fern? Is that how you’ve decided to use your power now?’
‘You told me to find a way. We needed that information!’
‘Not like that, Fern,’ Lord Allenby says desperately. ‘I said to look for anything obvious, not to hurt her, for God’s sake. Don’t you realise that’s how it starts? Do you think Medraut was always the man he is now? Don’t you think he justified his crimes to himself the same way you’re doing?’
‘I did it for you!’ I say, but I know that’s not strictly true. I did it for Mum, for Ramesh, and for me. The pain and terror on Lottie’s face will never leave my conscience, but I tell myself it was worth it.
‘He’s going to kill thousands of people, and you’re worried about one dreamer?’
‘I’m worried about every dreamer,’ Allenby says. ‘I’m worried about all my thanes and all the other thanes. Fern, I’m terrified that Medraut’s going to win. But as soon as I stop worrying about one person I may as well stop worrying about all of them. Don’t you see?’
He goes to the wall and presses his hands against it. He doesn’t speak for a long time. I am very aware of the hardness of the wooden panelling pressing into my back. When he speaks again, he sounds perfectly calm.
‘Tell me what to do, Miss King.’
‘What to do?’
‘You’ve put me in an impossible position. In normal circumstances I would have you taken to the morrigans for what you’ve just done. But you’re too valuable to me.’
I don’t know how to answer him. With his anger turned to resignation, I turn my own inwards, where it ought to be, where it should have been all along.
‘Your mother would never have wanted you to do what you just did,’ he says. ‘If she’d known you’d become this, she would never have held me to that oath.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, devastated at the thought of Mum’s disappointment.
Lord Allenby turns back to me.
‘We’ll put it behind us for now, and talk about how to deal with it afterwards.’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Fern?’
‘I can’t.’ Lottie’s scream, her agonised face. I had wanted to see what Medraut did to her, but why? He had done exactly what I did to her. Two people who should have been protecting her – one her father, one a sworn guardian – instead tortured her for their own ends. Is this the path I’m on now? To follow in Medraut’s footsteps, to let my power take hold of my conscience, to believe I am above right and wrong?
Ramesh thought that I was better than this, but the truth is that I’m not at all. He thought I was meant to be in the knights, but he was mistaken.
‘You should never have let me take the Tournament,’ I tell Lord Allenby.
The realisation that I’ve let Ramesh down is too much. I see again the horror on his face when he caught me with Jenny. It would be multiplied tenfold now. Lottie was more than innocent: she was being held in a dream not of her making by her own father. That’s the only way I can rationalise what was going on in her bedroom. And I freed her from that nightmare only to tip her into a more painful one.
‘I’m not a knight,’ I say.
‘You are –’
‘I resign,’ I say, bleakness flooding my body.
‘No. Fern, please. I appreciate the gesture but we need you …’
‘I can’t do it,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t turn into that man. I can’t.’
I flee the room, pushing past reeves and harkers as I rush out of the castle.
‘Fern?’ Rachel calls after me. ‘Fern, what’s wrong?’
The knights, hearing the commotion, pour out of the chamber. Ollie is nowhere to be seen but I glimpse Phoebe and Rafe looking puzzled. Samson is beside them. His expression is grave. I can see his disappointment and judgement. That, if nothing else, tells me that I am making the right decision.
I burst out of the castle and run down to the platform that will take me back to Ithr. More people call my name from the open doors. I fish for Mum’s mirror. As I open it, I glance back. They are there, all of them. Phoebe, Rafe, Samson. Phoebe is shouting something, but the light from mirror and stone meets and drowns her out. As it swallows me, I realise I never said goodbye.
The conviction that I’ve done the right thing wears off before the sun has risen. This is what losing your first love must feel like. Devastation that comes and goes in waves, leaving a void behind it. The uncontrollable crying adds to my existing headache, brought on by my torture of Lottie. Stomach-heaving sobs wrack through me every time I realise I’ll never again walk through the castle, or play in Annwn, or ride my darling Lamb. Will she think I’ve abandoned her? I’ll never again see my friends. Friends. The only ones I had, and they’re in another world that I can no longer visit.
When the tears finally stop I’m left with a numbness that spreads like a rash. Just as I’m thinking about dragging myself out of bed to face the day, someone thumps up the stairs and knocks on my door. They don’t wait for me to answer. Ollie’s face appears in the gap. He doesn’t have the guts to come in properly.
‘I let you down again,’ he says eventually.
‘You did a bit more than that. You told me to torture someone, then when we were caught you said nothing. It’s kind of impressive, how despicable you are. Or maybe you’re just a coward. I can’t decide which.’
‘I just wanted to find a way to catch Medraut. And when I saw them standing there … I was scared, Fern.’
‘And your automatic reaction was to let me take all the blame?’
‘I don’t belong anywhere else either. Everyone here knows what I did to you. Even if they’re nice to my face they know I was the guy who got his sister burned. I can’t ever be the good guy here, not really. In Annwn …’
‘You think I don’t understand about fresh starts?’ I say. ‘I will always be the sad little victim here.’
‘But I need friends, Fern. You’ve always been good on your own.’
‘Because I’ve had to be!’ I rummage through my desk drawers and find a series of old photos. Ones of Ollie and I when we were young, playing with the neighbourhood kids. I throw them at him. ‘Five years of having no one, Ollie. Five years. And yes, I thought I was fine with it. Until I became a knight, and remembered what it was like to have people who don’t treat me like shit.’
‘You could have told Lord All
enby the truth. I wouldn’t have denied it.’
‘You could have told him yourself,’ I say.
‘I … I will. If you want me to.’
It’s a pathetic offer and we both know it.
‘Don’t bother. It wouldn’t make anything better.’
I don’t admit my other truth: that I did not tell Lord Allenby about Ollie’s part in torturing Lottie because I have always prided myself on not being a lemming. I know I don’t blindly do what other people tell me to do. At the end of the day, Ollie didn’t force me. I hurt her all by myself, just as I’d hurt Jenny.
‘Are you done?’ I ask, pretending I’m busy – not that I’m fooling either of us. My bedroom’s such a tip it’s impossible to look like I’m doing anything other than trying not to trip over.
‘Is it true? That you quit?’
I don’t reply.
‘Fern, you can’t. They need you. It’s stupid to –’
I just look at him, and his argument dies on his lips.
At school, I can’t focus on anything. I replay our interrogation of Lottie, wondering whether there was another way of reaching that memory. If only we hadn’t been so impatient. If only I had said no to Ollie. When I see Lottie in class she doesn’t look any different. How can anyone hide the amount of damage that’s been done to her?
The nighttimes are the hardest. It would have been easier if I’d asked Lord Allenby to let the morrigans remove my memories of Annwn because sleep is now impossible. I would be unconscious, a dreamer, helpless. I wouldn’t be able to protect myself from my nightmares … or the other things that stalk me. For there’s no doubt that I’ll be on Medraut’s kill list, when the attack happens. And even if I’m not, I reckon the golden treitre that killed Mum will want to get its hands on the one girl who was able to defeat it.
For a few days at least, I come up with a very simple solution: I just won’t sleep.
As I sit against the coldest, hardest wall of my bedroom and try to ignore the heaviness in my eyes, I torture myself over everything I’ve lost. It helps me stay awake, like pinching. As they always have been in times of crisis, art and sugar become my refuges. I draw sketch after sketch of my time in Annwn, a different kind of self-flagellation. I make sure no one hears or sees me raiding the cupboards at night, but when we run out of our second pack of chocolate digestives in as many days Dad goes on strike and refuses to buy any more. It becomes harder and harder to stay awake; even when I make myself drink the awful instant coffee that Dad likes so much. Sometimes I allow myself brief naps, setting my alarm every half hour so I can get some rest but still stand a chance of escaping any nightmares.
Ollie tries to persuade me to rethink my decision.
‘They all miss you,’ he tells me. ‘They’ve got a plan for taking out the treitres before they can strike. It would be a lot easier with you there, though.’
‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ I say. I know what I have lost without having Ollie passing on sentimental messages. If I pretend hard enough, I can kid myself that Phoebe and Samson and the rest of them never liked me after all.
The one concession I make to my time in Annwn is to try to warn Helena Corday of the impending danger. I call her office several times, but when I finally get through to her, I don’t know what to say.
‘Is everything okay, Fern?’ she says over the phone.
‘You need to be careful,’ I tell her. ‘You’re in danger.’
Her voice turns cooler. ‘I deal with a lot of threats, Fern.’
‘No, not from me! Listen. This is going to sound crazy, but try not to sleep too much this week, okay?’
She’s conciliatory, but by the end of the conversation I’m certain she thinks I’m completely bonkers.
By the time Friday rolls around I am catatonic with exhaustion. I sit in front of my homework on the sofa. It’s a while before I realise that I’ve just written the word Beltane over and over on the paper that was supposed to be a French translation. When the key goes in the door I am just staring at the letters. Two days away.
‘Your dad said I could pop over to collect – Oh God, Fern, are you all right?’
Clemmie drops her handbag by the door and kneels in front of me.
‘I’m fine,’ I burble. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Sweetheart, you don’t look yourself. Are you sick?’
Clemmie makes me go to the bathroom to run some water over my face. Looking in the mirror properly for the first time in ages, I can see why she’s concerned. My hair is greasy and matted. My eyes are bloodshot, which combined with my red irises makes me look even more demonic than usual.
‘I’m just stressed about homework,’ I tell Clemmie when I come back downstairs.
‘You must make sure you get your beauty sleep.’ This is the kind of thing Clemmie says that makes it hard to warm to her. Nevertheless, Clemmie insists I climb into bed. She strokes my hair and hums a tune as I fight to keep my eyes open.
‘Sleep, Ferny,’ she whispers, her voice low and strangely compelling. ‘Have a long, long sleep now.’ My fight wafts away, along with my consciousness.
In my dreams, I walk up an endless drive lined with perfectly mushroomed trees. A young woman, all wild red hair and scars, matches my pace on one side. On the other side I am shadowed by a headless boy. The stump of his neck oozes blood. I’m sure I’ve met them both before.
Gradually, I become aware of a metallic sound, like the staccato twinkle of a star, and realise that there is something behind me. I turn.
Dad is tending to the flowers that line the path. He’s kneeling, his back towards me.
‘Dad?’ I say.
He straightens, and I see his face for the first time. His mouth has gone. Below his nose, the skin is smooth. Then he returns to his gardening, and there is worse. Something’s wrong with the back of his head. As I get closer I stifle a scream. There is a hole in his skull, and where the brain should be there is only blood, and the hollow interior of his eyes.
‘Daddy!’ I blurt out.
He turns once more, his mouthless face devoid of emotion. He stands, jerks towards me, and I jolt awake, fully clothed, in my bed.
48
The image of my dad in Annwn, his brain and mouth missing, stays with me. Was the Dad I saw my real father, also dreaming? Or was he a dream, created from my own fearful imagination?
When I come downstairs it’s later than I’d thought. I’ve been asleep all night and most of the morning. Thankfully it’s a Saturday, so no school for me. Dad’s in the middle of making the kitchen resemble a bomb site.
‘I’m taking the afternoon off work, Ferny,’ he tells me, flipping a pancake.
Well, he looks and acts like the same Dad I know. Maybe it was just a dream. Then I notice the TV is on and Medraut is speaking in Parliament. Dad never usually watches TV during the day.
‘I thought we could have some dad-daughter time,’ he says.
‘What did Clemmie tell you?’ We can’t afford for Dad to take time off work, which means he probably thinks I’m dying.
‘Nothing.’
‘You shouldn’t lie to your children. It gives us bad life lessons.’
He adds chopped bananas and chocolate sauce to the pancake, plonks it on the table and holds a chair out for me.
‘We’re worried about you. I think you need to take some time off.’
‘So you’re bribing me with sweet things.’
‘You’re eating it – that means you accept.’
It wasn’t quite what I had planned to do today, but Dad’s insistent, so half an hour later we’re walking towards Stratford in awkward silence. I’m rapidly regretting wearing my favourite jumper because what I’d taken for spring chill when inside, turns out to be the kind of warm sun we get when summer’s just around the corner. I can’t help but feel a bit miserable as we wander through the Olympic Park. I used to love walking around London, but everything looks bland in Ithr. In Annwn, walking along the canal as Dad and I are doing
now, we’d have met a few water gypsies and a kelpie or two, instead of dog walkers and out of control children.
Dad nudges me off the path when we reach Victoria Park. Where we live the pavements are covered in litter and unpicked dog poo, but here, just a few miles away, the streets don’t even have a stray chewing-gum mark.
‘Chips?’ Dad asks, but before I can answer he’s striding through the door of a posh chippy. I loiter outside. Conversation between us is already dwindling, and I want to stave off that awful feeling of not knowing how to connect with my own father for as long as possible. When Dad emerges, he doesn’t just hand me a greasy box filled with fat chips, but a milkshake too.
‘Your mum used to live around here, you know,’ he says as I munch on a fat, salty chip. He points at a window above the butcher opposite. ‘Shared a flat with some friends just there.’
The windows on the first-floor flat are open in the April heat. Beyond the curtains I glimpse floral wallpaper and antique paintings.
‘Don’t know what she saw in me.’ Dad smiles.
We take the food and milkshake to the park and Dad picks a bench overlooking a football pitch, and carries on telling me about Mum’s youth, occasionally stealing a chip from my box. During a lull in the conversation, Dad lays a hand over mine.
‘What’s going on, Ferny?’
I stare at him. ‘Nothing.’
‘Is it school? Are you being bullied again?’
How do I tell him that it’s not just at school – that it’s everywhere I go? How can he not have noticed the glances shot my way as we walked here? He might mean well, but he’s all talk, no action.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You know you can tell me anything.’
I shrug. Then something occurs to me. ‘Can I ask you anything?’
‘Of course.’
‘A few months ago you said that Mum was having nightmares.’
Dad nods, obviously not liking my line of questioning.
‘Did she say what they were about?’
‘Fern …’
‘You said I could ask you anything. This is what I want to know.’