I watch the people walk past the window. Soon, I hear bacon sizzling.
“So where are you from?” I ask as he comes back from the counter.
“Like I told you, Stockwell, we moved around a bit with… My father’s job. Most of what I told you was true.”
It’s my turn to snort. “Except for your magical healing aunt. And ever so cute little sister Callie.”
“Forever killed Callie six years ago. But no, I didn’t have a magical aunt who could heal with her hands. Although that would have been useful.”
“Callie was real?” I feel awkward and disgusted at the same time. “How could you use her memory like that, to get to me?”
“There is nothing I won’t do to stop what happened to my family, happening to others.”
“What happened?”
“Shot. She was eleven,” he adds. “But it was already obvious that she was going to be like me, telepathic. She was much better at it than me. Anyway, after that, Lucas got the job that you know about, and since then we’ve mostly been trying to grow the network, hit minor targets… Recruit Vol, but they keep getting killed.” He stares into his drink. “I guess now we know why.”
“Neither of us can trust much of our history,” I offer. He nods.
I think about my lessons at the Institute, about how Vol were described in my textbooks. When I was little, I was scared of them. Now, it seems I might be them. Will I turn delusional, violent, as well as short-lived? Or was that all a lie, too?
I turn my cup around in my hands, wondering how best to ask, but in the end I just blurt it out. “I was always taught that Vol are crazy violent. That they don’t live long.”
“Do I seem violent to you?” He’s offended.
“Not you – and you did hit me in the face, remember. I just wondered, how much of what my textbooks said was true.”
“People are people. The staff at Forever have taken drugs to extend their lives. Vol are born with psychic abilities. But we’re all just people, doing people stuff.” He shrugs. “I’ve never heard that Vol live shorter than anyone else, other than when Forever get hold of them, but how should I know? We’re something new, aren’t we? I wouldn’t worry about what your textbooks said if I were you, I don’t see that Forever know much about us.”
His phone beeps as the new sandwiches arrive, and his eyes flash to it. For a moment there’s such hope in his face that it’s hard to watch, and my heart hurts for him because I don’t think that Lucas is still alive.
Rehan’s face is a careful blank. “We’re on.”
“What?”
“Come on, let’s go find your mum.”
We take another taxi, and I marvel silently at how I have become used to travelling in cars. Already the smell of seat leather and car fumes seems normal, the grip of the seatbelt oddly comforting. “Less CCTV than the tube,” Rehan explains, as I look around the taxi. “We don’t know what companies Forever control.”
I don’t ask him where we’re going, don’t want to watch him dither about whether to tell the girl from Forever the exact location of a Vol home. So I watch London through the window, as the streets roll by. There are so many people, I never imagined that there were so many people out here, marching on, glazed with bags and umbrellas and dark coats. Why are they all wearing black and grey? If I could choose my own clothes, I’d wear red, yellow, pink, silver, anything but black and grey. I wonder what they all do with their days, whether any of their lives will intersect with mine. They all seem to be on their way to work. I suppose I’ll need a job soon too, if I’m not going to be part of Forever. I’ll need a home as well.
Suddenly I see Rehan in a completely different way, not as a betrayer, or a fellow fugitive, but as the person keeping me warm and fed and relatively safe. The guy with the cash and the contacts. Maybe I should be nicer to Rehan, at any moment, he could disappear into this blur of people and then I’d do – what?
I need him. I hate that.
I don’t know if I hate him, I don’t think I do, but I can’t like him. He’s so unashamed of how he tricked me, used me. He was so calculating. I haven’t forgiven him, and I’m definitely not in love with him anymore.
But I need him. I glance at the boy - man - sitting next to me. He’s lost in thought, eyes shadowed, chin covered in stubble. He’s still beautiful.
This would all be a lot simpler if I could forgive him.
I don’t know how forgiveness happens. I just feel empty.
We step out of the taxi, into a street of tall white houses. The bustle of central London feels very far away among the carefully trimmed trees and clean pavements. We’re the only people here, apart from an old lady a few doors away, putting out her cat.
These buildings are much larger and grander than the safe house, I guess that finding lost stuff must pay better than betrayal.
I wait on the pavement while Rehan has a brief chat with someone at the door, and then he calls me over and leads me inside. There’s a skinny man in his early 20s, still wearing pyjamas. This reminds me that I am too, and that I haven’t washed properly in a while. I probably smell.
The pyjama man sips from a cup as he looks me over, and the aroma of coffee wraps around me.
“Meet Nevi,” Rehan motions to the man.
“I’m sorry it’s so early,” I say awkwardly, shutting the front door behind me. It’s good to be inside a proper house. This building feels very different from the safe house, or the farmhouse, or Forever, and I realise that this is the first time I’ve been inside a real home. I look around curiously. There’s a lot of colour in a home, the walls of the hall are painted in orange and gold stripes, and the floor is a maze of blue tiles. Nevi’s stuff is everywhere, coats piled high over the banister, gloves bursting out of a cupboard drawer, a bicycle peeping out of the kitchen.
“Oh, these?” Nevi waves dismissively at his clothes. “I practically live in these, why have a job where you can work in pyjamas, unless you take advantage of the opportunity? Besides, the mystic lot love it.”
“Mystic lot?” I hope this isn’t a cult.
“Yeah, if a banker pays hundreds to know where he lost his car keys and I just tell him straight away that they’re stuck in his sofa, the guy tends to get a bit grumpy. So I chuck a bit of mumbo jumbo stuff in, pad things out. Stops people from asking how I do it, too – they can see for themselves that I did it with the special twinkly winkly crystal. Won’t throw any of that at you guys, of course. Come on, come in.”
He leads us down the hall and I begin to see what he means by mumbo jumbo, as we pass a line of primitive carved masks nailed to a wall, and dodge a chain of dangling crystals hanging randomly from the ceiling. “Oh yeah, mind that,” mutters Nevi. “It was a gift from a client a while back, so I had to stick it somewhere she’d see it. I’d take it down, but my cat loves it. Anyway, Rehan tells me you’re in a hurry. Let’s skip the mumbo jumbo room, and head for the sofa.”
The smell of incense sidles out of a doorway, and I glance in as we pass by – the room is shadowed, with light glinting off crystals lurking in corners. He wasn’t joking about the mumbo jumbo. Nevi leads us on, into a discreetly luxurious lounge, where he chucks himself back into a squishy blue sofa surrounded by a huge sound system. He looks up at us expectantly.
“So, what’ve you lost?” he asks us.
I open my mouth to explain, but Rehan beats me to it. “Fern’s lost her mother.” I snap my mouth shut. I suppose that’s as good a way to put it as any.
Nevi winces. “People are harder than objects. They move around, you know. Get ideas of their own. No guarantees.”
“Fair enough,” replies Rehan, passing Nevi a handful of banknotes. That’s more money I owe Rehan – I hope it’s all dirty money from Forever, and not his own savings.
“Was it at least recent?” Nevi asks hopefully.
“Nope,” Rehan answers. “But I know you love a challenge. We’ve got a name…”
“Nah, doesn’t help,” Nevi give
s him an exasperated look. “Well, I might not get a location but I should be able to at least get a direction, since it’s blood family and all.”
He turns to me. “So, who are you, Fern?”
“Shouldn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, you shouldn’t ever let anyone do that. Here—” he takes my hands between his, shutting his eyes as his forehead wrinkles like he’s trying to remember something.
Moments pass, and Nevi doesn’t move. I raise my eyebrows at Rehan, who nods encouragingly. I begin to get bored, and shift my weight back and forth, one foot to another, pretending I don’t see Rehan’s admonishing look. Moments stretch into minutes, and my arms are tired in Nevi’s hold. The sofa looks really inviting, but I don’t want to disturb Nevi by moving around.
Eventually he lets go, and opens his eyes. He looks like he’s drugged, or half asleep, as he grabs a felt tip pen and map from a pile on the floor. “It’s definitely North,” he mumbles, staring at the map. “Couple of hours at least, probably more I’d say. Feels like four or five.”
Rehan’s face drops in disappointment. This is seriously vague.
“Water. Loads of water. Not salt, though, although the sea’s not far... Loads of not salt water, close together – lakes. Lake district. Got to be. Agh, this is frustrating, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Stones and circular castles and – no that doesn’t feel right. Something about castle stones though. And actors, maybe a theatre. Pens, pencils? Something you write with, but loads of them and not for writing. It could be places she goes…”
He’s utterly lost me, but I’m captivated, and impatient with the ramble. “I’ve got a mother?”
He gives me a weird look. “Yeah. You’ve definitely got a mother. Here—” he tears a page out of the map with a red line following a road, and a circle drawn round some lakes. “If you just wanted to know that she’s still alive, job done. If you seriously want to find her…”
He looks at the crazed scribbles all over the map in between us. “I’d head up there and ask around.”
Rehan nods. “Can do.” He hesitates. “I need you to do the same for me. I’m not sure where my Dad is right now and there’s some stuff you need to know. About Forever. And KHH.” He pulls Nevi aside.
I wait in the hall while Nevi does a private reading for Rehan. Afterwards, they both seem different. Rehan steps through the doorway with bleak eyes, and I know not to ask what Nevi said about Lucas.
Nevi is shaking his head, agitated. “Sorry. What you said about KHH is crazy stuff, man, crazy. I am out of here, I am gone.”
“Where to?” Rehan asks dully.
“After what you just told me, I’m telling no-one nothing.”
“But if we need to talk –”
“We won’t.”
Nevi escorts us to the door, tired and distracted. He doesn’t seem friendly anymore, but I’m so curious about what he did. I have to ask, especially if we’ll never meet again. “What does it feel like? To do what you do?”
He doesn’t bother to look at me. “Just feels like remembering. People ask me where stuff is and I remember, like I’ve always known. It’s tugging up the details, turning impressions into words, that’s tiring.”
I was sure he’d say that, but I check further: “But how can it work… Do you think it’s sharing a memory from the other person?”
“Nah. Otherwise it’d never work if the objects moved. Your mum hasn’t been sitting in one place since you saw her, has she? I remember where stuff is now.” He’s bored of these questions, he must hear them from every client.
I’ve never heard of a talent like that, this is outside my training. Telekinesis, telepathy, clairaudience. Those are words I know, things that make sense to me. But this? Something about it disturbs me on a deep level. I press him. “But don’t you think it should be impossible? How can you remember something that never happened to you?”
Nevi shrugs, keen to get rid of us. “All I know is that I can.” Our eyes meet as he reaches past me to open the front door, and, seeing the urgency on my face, he offers me a little more. “I do know, though, that it’s much easier to remember stuff that the client is particularly worked up about. Especially if they’re irritated or upset about what they’ve lost... I don’t think time and emotion work the way people think they do. It’s like – emotions exist outside time, somehow, and if you’re tuned in, you can hear them. I don’t think it matters when you are. Grief from a decade ago can be as strong as grief from yesterday. Who’s to say that emotion in the future can’t somehow… Leak back in time?”
Emotion again. I’d love to stay longer talking to Nevi, but Rehan is waiting patiently on the pavement. I’m a tangle of frustration and yearning and suppressed rage, I want answers, about Forever, about my mother, about everything. I brush against Nevi to step into the street. I swear he flinches. Whatever.
I walk through the door, down the white steps. I’m going to find my mother. Suddenly, the air tastes different, and despite the heavy clouds above, I can feel sunshine. I’m stepping into a world I’ve never seen before. I’ve got a mother. I’m not immortal. Vol at birth perhaps, but not talented. Normal. That feels like it might be a fun thing to be. I’m going to find my mother and she’ll look after me and we’re going to be as normal as it gets.
Nevi is staring at me. “Fern – you’ve not lost just your mother, have you.”
I shrug.
He hesitates, then continues, “Whatever it is you’ve turned your back on, let go of – it hasn’t let go of you, not yet.”
“What?”
“Watch your back.”
The door shuts in my face, taking the warmth of the house with it.
I can’t feel sunshine anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
Rain washes over the glass in waves, back and forth across the windscreen, as Rehan drives us North. The road is huge, wide, too fast – five lanes of traffic. I didn’t know that they made roads this size, and how he can see where to go in this weather beats me. The tarmac in front of us disappears into mist, spat up in dirty clouds from the cars around us.
I’m so over sitting in cars. It took us ages to crawl through London’s morning traffic, and that was after Rehan managed to find a car rental and haggle over whatever this is. It doesn’t look anything like the taxi we were in earlier, it must be a decade older at least, and I’m not convinced that it will last the four or five hours Nevi predicted. Not at this speed. My door is vibrating, and I swear some air is breezing in around the closed window.
It hasn’t let go of you.
Nevi’s parting words keep coming back to me, but I can’t discuss them with Rehan, I don’t want to give him a reason to ditch me. He has enough reasons already.
Watch yourself. For the hundredth time since we left Nevi’s house, I push aside the words by focusing on my immediate surroundings. Unfortunately, I’m in the front seat of a moving vehicle for the first time in my life. The vehicles outside are close, the road chaotic, and I flinch every time a car comes too near to ours.
Maybe I should have sat in the back seat.
“Are you ok?” Rehan glances at me.
“Don’t you need to watch the road?” I force the words out, staring straight ahead.
“It’s fine.” A lorry wobbles ahead of us and I squeak as Rehan slides the car into a different lane. Driving looks much more complicated than I thought, surely it’s not safe for him to talk and drive.
He glances at me. “What’s the matter?”
“Have you driven a lot?” I ask suspiciously, inspecting the buttons and levers in front of him.
“Yes. Are you worried about my driving?” He looks mystified, perhaps a little hurt, as he turns to me again. “I’m going pretty slow here.”
“Watch out!” Another car nips in front of us. “I’d just feel a lot better if you keep looking at the road.”
“Ok.”
We drive in silence for a few moments, then Rehan grins, and slowly lifts both hands from the w
heel. I lunge for it as he laughs and grips it again. It’s good to hear him laugh, he’s been in a foul mood since we left Nevi.
“You are, you’re worried about my driving, aren’t you? Did they do it differently at the Institute or something?”
“I wouldn’t know, I didn’t drive around the grounds, did I?”
“But you’ve been in vehicles there, right? Its grounds are massive.”
I shake my head grumpily.
“Oh.” An awkward silence. “Really, we’re going at a normal speed.”
“I liked the boat better.”
“Well, we can’t take a boat to the lake district.”
“Why not?”
“We just can’t. Would you like some music?”
“In the car?” I perk up.
“Sure.” He presses a button, and the car fills with sound. “These are the radio stations—”
“Watch the road!”
“I am! Look, press this button to scroll through the channels.” He huffs and leaves me to it, but at least he’s looking out of the windscreen again.
I tap a button and the song changes. A blare of jangled sounds and a yelling man, I don’t like that. Then something too slow, are those violins? I don’t know much about music, we didn’t have radio at the Institute, and on TV Forever chose the movies. Oh, this one’s slower, and I can hear the words.
What if you were meant to be mine, asks the singer. What if I was meant to be yours? It’s nice, but Rehan sighs.
I settle more comfortably in my seat. “What’s this called?”
“Country music.”
“It comes from the countryside? Or a different country?”
“It’s just a name. Is this really want you want to listen to?”
“Yes,” I say firmly. “You chose this car, I wanted the green one. I get to choose the music.”
He mutters something.
“How far do we have to go?” I ask.
“We’ve only just left London! You’re not going to ask ‘Are we there yet?’ the whole way, are you?”
A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1) Page 10