by Terry Kitto
Her classmates did in an instant, but Rasha found that she couldn’t look in that direction. At a murderer. The face of a monster.
The class simmered down and practiced rendering 3D objects on scraps of copy paper. Rasha’s mind was far from gradients and shading. She was conflicted. Cridland had shown her more kindness than most, letting her borrow the department’s equipment. He knew she used it to better her life at home and catch up with schoolwork. If they weren’t acts of kindness, what was it in aid of? She stared at the blank page and waited for poor Joel Tredethy to come back and show her more.
‘Psst,’ Fred hissed to her left. ‘Oi.’
Joel’s falling body became disjointed and broken. Milana’s arm severed from her body.
Fred prodded her arm. She looked at him without a care that tears cascaded down her face.
He whistled the tune of the Joel Tredethy song. It took on a new meaning and no longer filled Rasha with shame or anger but a fearful nausea.
The drone of speeding planes.
A shadow fell over their table, and Fred quietened. Cridland towered over them. A face that Rasha had once regarded as sympathetic and dishevelled, with its wrinkles and heavy eyes, now seemed angular and full of malice. He looked at Rasha’s empty sheet of copy paper and to Fred’s, which had a wispy oblong circle sketched onto its surface. Cridland’s eyes, now sharp as a jigsaw blade, rested on Rasha. She wasn’t sure if they expressed disappointment or something more venomous.
‘If you don’t have at least one shape rendered by the end of the period, it’ll be a detention,’ he said. ‘For you both.’
Cridland’s young face, watching blankly through the bannisters at Joel’s squinched, lifeless body.
‘Piss off,’ Rasha snarled.
She quickly collected her things and threw them into her bag. Cridland stepped back, fists clenched but silent. To Rasha’s left, Fred continued to snicker, although now it wasn’t aimed at her but their teacher, unprepared as to handle the situation with his favourite student.
The class ignored the tutorials of the Haya-like woman and watched Rasha sprint from the classroom.
Rasha had broken a singular promise to herself, one she had made during the journey from Calais to Britain. Crammed in a container upon a ferry, sea sickness passed through the asylum seekers. Vomit, urine, and Allah knew what else sloshed on the floor amongst the many feet and crates. The burns on Haya’s arms, the very same she’d gained from pulling Rasha out of their apartment, oozed with infection. The makeshift bandages were black with blood and worse.
That journey was a breather from constant onslaught of military and border patrol. And so, in the near-blackness, people whispered prayers for the dead. Between names they chanted, ‘Verily we belong to Allah, and truly to Him shall we return.’
Rasha didn’t indulge as Haya shared their family’s names to a god who’d snatched them from their lives. She stood, rigid and silent, as if one fewer body swayed in the cramped container. Rasha promised herself she’d never heed evil again; fear wouldn’t control her life.
Sat in an immaculate staff toilet cubicle, she realised she’d done just that. Not only had she let bullies and imprints instil fear in her, she’d befriended a murderer. She could set that straight.
She’d take up Vanessa’s offer.
Usually, if she had hidden in the toilets for more than a period, the school counsellor, Mrs Retallick, would come find her and coax her from the cubicle. It seemed that they didn’t bother to check the staff toilets. Either that or Cridland had reported Rasha’s potty-mouthed behaviour, and she had graduated from a troubled refugee to a troublesome teen.
The last hours dragged until the final bell tolled. A torrent of footsteps echoed in the halls, so Rasha gathered her things and slipped from the bathroom into the crowd. Head down, she made sure to blend into the sea of black-and-yellow uniforms. She fled outside, crossed the Key Stage 3 playground, and scarpered to the parking lot alongside the gym. Vanessa returned in her Land Rover as she’d promised.
Rasha raced to the passenger door without hesitation and hopped into the cabin. Vanessa grinned toothily.
‘I’m really glad to see you,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll stop by the caravan site first and let your mother know.’
‘No, don’t,’ Rasha interjected. ‘She’ll only worry. Can I borrow your phone?’
‘Sure,’ Vanessa said. She passed Rasha an Android mobile. ‘Passcode is 1-8-3-7.’
‘Thanks.’
Rasha typed in the passcode, opened the messaging app, changed Vanessa’s keyboard to Arabic (Levant), typed in Haya’s mobile number, and hammered out a text.
It’s Rasha, borrowed Mrs Branning’s phone. Doing after-school art club. Back later tonight.
She clicked send, locked the phone, and passed it back. Vanessa had reached the main road and would be at the collieries in five minutes.
‘What are we going to do?’ Rasha said.
‘The best way to control your connection with the frequency is to practice engagement with an imprint,’ Vanessa explained. ‘We’ll head to the collieries and use a receptor to source a guide.’
‘Will mentioned that,’ Rasha said, her heart still heavy when she thought of him. ‘An imprint I’m connected to. That I can train with.’
‘The frequency, it binds us together,’ Vanessa continued, far more enthusiastic than any teacher at Gorenn Comprehensive. ‘It means that two people could be centuries apart, but if they experienced similar things in their lifetimes, they can use those emotions to find each other in the ombrederi. Unfortunately, this means it’s usually the most traumatic experiences. It seems to be a fundamental flaw in the human condition that we are emotionally stained by negative events. . .’
Vanessa trailed off. Rasha imaged that for Vanessa to be a witness, she must have experienced a horrendous tragedy of her own. Her words made perfect sense. Rasha thought back over the imprints she had seen: the miners, bloodied and limbless, trapped in a crumbling tunnel beneath Wheal Gorenn; Joel, who’d been alienated by his classmates and met a fatal end at the hands of a monster, just as Milana had. They were imprints who could fathom what Rasha had experienced that night in Syria.
‘There’s one at school,’ Rasha said.
Vanessa continued to Wheal Gorenn to get equipment for Rasha’s training. Halfway there, a terrible thought struck Rasha and made her stomach sink.
‘Everything that happened in Syria,’ she said, careful not to say anything wrong; Vanessa showed a lot of pride for witnessing culture, more so than Sam or Trish. ‘Imprints will draw it out of me. I’ll never escape it.’
Vanessa turned in her seat, looking dismayed.
‘Not at all,’ the woman said. ‘You have to build your tolerance to certain emotions. No, you’ve got potential for more than just engagement.’
‘More?’
‘Beyond, into new possibilities. You met Sam and Trish. Trish has foresight, and she’s leading sonar, a program that allows one to collect memories from various imprints and rebuild moments in time.’
‘Like crime scene investigation?’
‘If ever there was a future when the Network and the Ministry of Defence could work together, sure,’ Vanessa chortled. ‘Then there’s Sam. He can withdraw his imprint from his body, and in doing so can reach imprints that many witnesses wouldn’t be able to detect.’
Vanessa admired her fellow witnesses.
‘What about you?’ Rasha said. ‘Can you do any of that?’
The Land Rover shuddered as it tore onto the gravel of the collieries’ yard. Vanessa parked in the warehouse and helped Rasha from the car. They descended into a mineshaft Rasha knew all too well. They reached the two plaques bolted to the stone wall outside the activity centre.
‘Edward Penrose,’ Rasha read. ‘Was he a witness?’
‘One of the best the Network ever knew,’ Vanessa replied as they strode into the activity centre. ‘We’re indebted. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be
here now.’
The horde of late-night workers peered at them – more so Rasha – from their desks as they passed between the chipboard partitions. Rasha slowed when she spotted Trish amongst the faces. Bleary eyed, Trish did not look well. When she spotted Vanessa leading Rasha through the cavern, she raised a hand in hello.
Rasha wondered whether she had been blamed for Will’s death. Trish’s stare didn’t incite her with positivity. Rasha wanted to impart her sympathy to both Trish and Sam but supposed it wasn’t the time or place. She gave a tender smile in return, hoping that it would signal she meant well.
Vanessa led Rasha to what she had known to be called the birdcage, then ducked inside to confer with James. The manager’s office, a cylindrical glass room right at the centre of the hubbub, looked just as it had in the shadow’s memories. Perhaps the shadow lurked in the darkness on the outer edges of the cavern, unable to get past the tin dampeners bolted to the stalactites above. Perhaps it prowled the ombrederi, waiting for Rasha to engage.
Her train of thought was derailed when Vanessa walked out with James in tow. A short, slightly hunched man, James was someone Rasha guessed was younger than he looked, and just as grief had chipped away at Haya, she imagined that was the case for him.
‘Rasha,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘I haven’t had the privilege of saying hello.’
Rasha shook it. She’d never shaken a man’s hand before; it certainly wouldn’t have been allowed in Syria. She’d not met anyone in Cornwall who was either that polite or formal.
‘Hi,’ she eventually said.
‘We’ll get the equipment together and then head out,’ Vanessa informed him.
‘Good night,’ he bid them.
Vanessa led Rasha to a tunnel behind James’s office. A meagre warmth swelled over them, and after a short but steady descent the tunnel opened out into a cavern with many entrances. Rasha recognised one: the receptor cavern. They trudged upward into a room in a ground floor warehouse. A variety of gadgets were stacked behind locked wire cabinets. Rasha could barely imagine how much it would cost to produce such equipment.
‘Does the Edward Penrose Trust keep all this going?’ she asked.
Vanessa continued to pluck equipment from the stores and put them into a hiking bag.
‘All of our equipment, site maintenance, witnesses’ living expenses,’ Vanessa said. ‘As much as people try, once you see imprints, once you learn about the world beyond ours, the ombrederi, the frequency, there is no going back to a regular life, to normal jobs.’
Rasha was downhearted; after the government had granted ‘leave to remain,’ all that kept her going was the prospect of university and a postgraduate job that paid enough to own her own place. Pure independence, total security.
‘Witnesses are stuck here?’
Vanessa spun around, eyes sharp.
‘You don’t get stuck at home,’ she said with grit. ‘Think of it as a nest. People come and go. After all, if the Network was all we knew, we wouldn’t have these gadgets or our scientific understanding. Right, that’s it.’
Vanessa zipped up her hiking bag and slung it onto her back. They continued up a low-ceilinged mineshaft that Rasha knew would take them back toward the indoor car park.
‘Tell me about this imprint,’ Vanessa said. ‘What has it shown you?’
‘He was called Joel Tredethy. Well, I suppose he still is,’ Rasha mumbled. ‘He died at the school. That’s what he showed me. He was killed because he was trying to do the right thing.’
‘And what do you think the link is between you?’
Rasha thought a moment. Joel’s life had been taken from him by someone that had a duty of care, and Rasha’s family had been ripped away from her by militants fighting for her country’s freedom. They’d both been wronged by those who were meant to protect them.
‘We were betrayed,’ she concluded. Ahead, the lights of the indoor car park glistened.
‘Then that, Rasha Abadi,’ Vanessa huffed, adjusting the straps of her bag where they slipped from her shoulders, ‘is the key to greater things.’
Nightfall transformed Gorenn Comprehensive into a building barren and soulless, and Rasha detested it.
Settled in the courtyard between the DT and English buildings, Vanessa first defused an EMP, which she promised would wipe out the CCTV cameras. ‘Like candles in the wind.’
The turn of phrase seemed strange coming from a woman so young, but Rasha let it go. She tried to make herself comfortable, which was hard when the school was a source of discomfort by day and even more so by night when it resembled the streets of Homs. Around them, Vanessa erected Rubik’s-esque tin boxes at three points of a triangle. She didn’t bother to explain what they were, nor did she need to. A fresh shock of frequency energy gnawed at Rasha’s skin. Rasha presumed they would draw Joel in. Vanessa straightened up the last box.
‘I’m quite fond of an allegory,’ she said. ‘Consider yourself a key. You were made to only fit certain locks. That’s the first step in engagement. Understand how you are similar; how you fit together. There’s nothing stronger than knowing what you want.’
What Rasha wanted was pretty simple: she wanted to be normal – to control the threshold between herself and the ombrederi. It consumed her every day to the point that her thoughts became default when she wasn’t worried about imprints, schoolwork, or her relationship with Haya. She also had to find out what Joel wanted.
‘I’m ready to engage,’ Rasha said.
Vanessa nodded, her eyes wide with enthusiasm. She took her phone from her pocket and swiped her screen. The frequency energy around Rasha fizzed to new heights. She watched as her mentor took her leather journal from the rucksack and flipped to one of the last pages in the aged volume.
‘Does journaling work?’ Rasha asked. ‘My school counsellor said I should try it.’
Vanessa looked confused at first, caught Rasha’s eyes on her journal, then laughed and waved it in the air.
‘Oh, when you get as old as I am, memories escape you,’ she chortled. ‘Especially when your attention is divided between here and the ombrederi.’
Movement ahead stole Rasha’s focus. At the end of the courtyard were Cridland’s workshop windows. The heads of the jigsaws could be seen, as if a row of students were still sat on the back benches. Amongst which, so white he seemed wrapped in moonlight, was Joel Tredethy.
‘He’s here,’ Rasha uttered.
‘That’s it, engage,’ Vanessa urged. ‘Don’t be scared.’
Rasha was far from scared. Joel felt like an old friend. She’d seen the worst he’d experienced, and through that learnt how Cridland was the one to beware.
Rasha recollected the night in Homs, the evening before the explosion, and the arguments her parents had. Their valuables were gathered in a chest under their bed, to barter safe passage across Europe. Their father slipped out under the cloak of night and returned to Haya to have long conversations. As they spoke – sometimes shouted, sometimes cried – they pointed to a map sprawled out between them in the light of their kerosene lamp. The plans were in place. Her father spoke with confidence that a friend of his, a double agent for the Syrian armed forces, predicted an artillery attack a week from then.
So why haven’t we left? Rasha had thought. What’s holding us back?
She’d never found out. The bombs dropped the following night and tore their family in half. Rasha had once supposed her father’s informant was mistaken, for Homs was one of many sieges across Syria. Time passed, and Rasha saw more of the world, and she wondered whether her father had been purposefully misled. After all, the civil war had many sides. A true comrade would be hard to find in a sea of enemies.
Then Rasha was sucked into the ombrederi.
The ombrederi first came as blackness imbued with a multicoloured sheen like an oil slick caught in sunlight. Amongst it stood Joel Tredethy, his hand outstretched. Rasha took it.
A room built itself up brick by brick, floorboard by floo
rboard, and on the single bed lay Joel, arms wrapped around his shins. There was Joel, body lamented by his death, stood beside Rasha, and there was another Joel, curled up on the bed, just a memory. Past-Joel’s knuckles were bloodied and bruised. The window opposite looked over a garden where a shirtless muscle-bound man, body sweat-sheened, thumped a punching bag hung from a recycled swing set. Rasha presumed it was Joel’s father. Past-Joel winced as each right hook landed.
Imprint-Joel motioned for Rasha to trudge on. As they did, Joel’s bedroom folded away to reveal Gorenn Comprehensive’s Key Stage 3 playground. Past-Joel yelled at a group of kids that sneered at him. ‘You said I could play.’
A snooty blond-haired girl broke from the crowd and said, ‘We did, and now we’ve decided you can’t.’
A ginger kid tore past-Joel’s satchel from his shoulder and threw it to the group of children.
‘Give it back!’ Joel yelled. He dared not look at the children or his satchel as its contents cascaded across the puddle-strewn courtyard. Instead, he stood rigid, eyes fixed on his untied laces, fists balled, until his emptied satchel was thrown to his feet and the school children raced off at the sound of the school bell.
The scene dissolved, and the courtyard came back. The sky above warbled with cyan light and cast the playground into an underwater twilight. Rasha wanted to ask why he hadn’t fought back, why he hadn’t fled to teachers for help. But she knew the answer: retaliating at school would bring trouble to a home that didn’t need more, and schoolteachers were just as dismissive of him as his peers were. There was one thing that could satisfy them both.
‘Get your own back,’ Rasha said. ‘Get revenge. It’s what they deserve. What they all deserve.’
In a blink, they were within Cridland’s workshop. Refracted violet and green light cast the benches and equipment into a haze. Rasha soaked in Joel’s distorted imprint and looked beyond his broken bones and lacerations. A lack of confidence put his shoulders into a permanent stoop, his eyes fixed to anything but a human face. It wasn’t within the boy’s nature, certainly not in life, nor in death. She wished it for him. The world deserved malice after what the boy was given.