by Sally Green
“No!”
She puts her finger on the end of my chin and turns my head toward her.
I feel a bit hot but I wouldn’t say I was blushing.
She says, “You’re so sweet.”
Sweet!
I say, “I think I’m quite badass.”
She giggles and gets up. “You’re sweet and you’re slow. You never catch me.”
And she runs off and I run after her and that day, for the first time, I catch her.
Getting Darker
It must be past midnight. So that’s another day gone. Another day of thinking positively. Another day of thinking about Annalise but not getting any closer to helping her. Another day of sitting in a tree, waiting for Gabriel, and him not showing up. I should try to sleep but I’m not tired. I’m rarely tired at night. Instead I seem to come alive a little more, though I know I get a bit darker too.
I could do some lists or go back to stuff Celia taught me: how to kill with a knife; how to kill with my hands. That’s cheery. Or maybe facts. My family tree is a good one. Just recite the names over and over: Harrow, Titus, Gaunt, Darius, Leo, Castor, Maximilian, Massimo, Axel, Marcus, Nathan. Harrow, Titus, Gaunt, Darius . . .
Of course the list is a bit on the depressing side and I’m not supposed to do depressing but I can’t be blamed if they were all killed by Hunters or tortured to death by the Council. Though Marcus isn’t dead, or at least as far as I know he’s still alive and well and living no one knows where. And he was with me, and saved my life, and performed my Giving ceremony, but he left, left me on my own, again, like my whole life.
“You did well enough on your own,” he’d said. Classic cop-out!
Mustn’t be negative. Got to stay posi-bloody-tive.
Shit, I’m in a black mood.
I need to try more memory tests. Yeah, I could recite all the Gifts my father stole, one for each human heart he has eaten. And that man, that killer, that PSYCHOPATH, sat opposite me and talked with me and gave me three gifts. And I can’t hate him and I’m not even afraid of him. I’m . . . awestruck by him. That’s positive, isn’t it, to admire your father? Your father the psycho. Is he a psychopath? I don’t know. I don’t know what the definition is. Don’t know how far down the path of eating people you have to go before you officially become a psycho.
I’m biting my nails again, only there’s not much left to bite.
And here I am, sitting in a tree, biting my fingers—Nathan, son of Marcus, the kid who’s supposed to kill his father, the kid who tried to prove he wouldn’t hurt his father by returning the Fairborn to him but who cocked it up and lost the knife. And I know I wouldn’t even last a second in a fight against Marcus, but everyone thinks I can kill him; everyone wants me to kill him. I managed to escape Wallend and those White Witches who want me to do it and I ran to Mercury and guess what? She wants me to kill him too.
Shit! I need to think of something more positive.
I need to think about Annalise again. I used to think about her when I was in the cage. I fantasized about her, imagined touching her and having sex and stuff like that. Not that I’ve actually had any sex or even much stuff like that. And the last time I held her hand was when I was sitting next to her on Mercury’s roof, and then it all turned to shit and the wind was holding me back as Mercury lured Annalise onto the grass. I remember Annalise’s body lying there, her chest heaving, desperate for air, and that last gasp that looked so slow and so painful before she was still, and I hate it. I hate that last gasp.
And, while I’m thinking about hate, I can make a good list on that subject. There’s my sister, of course: darling Jessica. She has hated me from my birth with venom and I return the feeling in spades. There’s her boyfriend, Clay, leader of the Hunters, brutal and arrogant. What’s not to hate? And the other brute, Kieran O’Brien, Annalise’s oldest brother, who used to be top of my hate list but is now just hovering at number three most days. Number two on my hate list is Soul O’Brien, Council member. He told me he wanted to be the one to give me three gifts, which is, frankly, freakier than keeping me in a cage. He might well be some kind of psycho too. And, talking of psychos, numero uno on my hate list is Mr. Wallend. The White Witch who worked on me as if I was a lab rat. The man who gave me my tattoos, which are the things I hate more than anything.
So that was positive!
Celia isn’t on the list. I don’t hate Celia anymore, which is a good thing, I guess. After all, to not hate someone who kept you locked up in a cage for nearly two years is positive. Surely. On the other hand maybe it shows that I’m totally screwed up by that whole experience. I don’t know. But Celia’s not on the list.
Mercury isn’t either. Mercury doesn’t inspire hate. It would be like hating the weather.
Mercury said she would free Annalise in exchange for my father’s head or his heart. I won’t deliver either. Somehow I have to find a way to get back to Mercury, find Annalise, break the spell she’s under, and escape with her. Sounds difficult and dangerous but I have a plan, which is another positive thing. Except the plan is crap and stupid and won’t ever work. And Mercury will kill me for sure.
Still, I shouldn’t worry about that. After all, everyone dies sometime.
And at the moment I’ve got enough problems with the current plan. I’ve been here more than a month now and I’m struggling to imagine a positive scenario: a scenario where Gabriel can’t get here not because he’s dead or captured by Hunters but because he’s lying in a luxury king-size bed, reading a book and eating croissants.
If he had been captured they’d have tortured him and he would have told them everything. Everything about me, him, the Fairborn, Annalise, and most definitely where they could find me, about our meeting place here at the cave. I’d have told them under Retribution and so would he. There’s no shame in that. Retribution breaks everyone eventually and no one could hold out for a month. And yet the Hunters aren’t here. But neither is Gabriel. So that means he’s dead. Shot by Hunters that night when we took the Fairborn. Killed trying to save me. And here I am, sitting in a tree, trying to be positive.
Positive is pretty sick when you think about it.
Not Waiting
It’s getting light by the time I reach Mercury’s cottage. After my father gave me three gifts I fled from here, chased by Hunters. This is the third time I’ve been back since then. My chance to watch them for a change.
The first time I returned was two weeks ago, when I was absolutely sure that no Hunters were on my trail. I’d killed the fast one and lost the rest. I was fairly certain that they wouldn’t expect me to return. After all, there would be no point in me coming back and it would be stupidly dangerous. Given that logic I was expecting there wouldn’t be many Hunters at the cottage. Wrong! There were twelve. I think they were using it as a base from which to try to find Mercury. There was a magical cut in space that she used to travel to her real home. A cut like the one Gabriel and I used to get to the cottage from the apartment in Geneva. My father said that Hunters could detect cuts so I guess that by now either Mercury has destroyed the cut to her real home or the Hunters have found the way through and Mercury is dead too. And if Mercury is dead then I’ve no idea what will have happened to Annalise. But Mercury wouldn’t be careless, or slow, or weak. I think she’ll have destroyed the cut, covered her tracks well so this valley is a dead end for the Hunters as well as for me.
That first time I came back to the cottage Clay was here and in a foul mood, shouting a lot. Jessica was with him. She has a long scar from her forehead across her nose and cheek where I cut her—or rather where the Fairborn cut her. Clay didn’t seem to mind that, though; he and Jessica still seemed to be an item. He put his arm round her and kissed the tip of her nose. At one point he came close to the forest edge, hands on hips, legs apart. He seemed to be staring straight at me. I was well hidden and he couldn’t see me but it was as if he was wait
ing for me.
I came back to the cottage again a week ago. There were only six Hunters left and I expected Clay to be one of them: I thought he knew I’d come back but he wasn’t here. Instead I had the pleasure of seeing Kieran. And there was a different atmosphere this time. The remaining Hunters were sunbathing, laughing, messing around. It was almost like a holiday camp, except these are Hunters and they’re never on holiday. They definitely didn’t look as if they expected the son-of-you-know-who to turn up.
I studied Kieran: he was stripped to the waist, his hair was sun-bleached, his face ruddy brown, and his body huge and heavy with muscle. He’s almost as big as Clay. They’d set up an obstacle course of logs and climbing frames, ropes and a crawl net. Despite his size Kieran was always the fastest and he mocked the others for being slow. When it came to the sparring it was clear that the girls were beginners. Kieran’s partner was good; Kieran, excellent. Still, I reckon I could take him in a straight fight but his Gift makes it much trickier as he can become invisible. One of the girls seemed to be able to set things on fire and another could send out bolts of lightning but they were both pretty weak Gifts. I couldn’t work out what Kieran’s partner or the other girls could do.
Hunters are mainly women but there are a few skilled male witches. They only recruit the strongest and fittest, partnering males together and females together. I’ve never heard of Hunters being anything other than British before now but two of the girls weren’t. They spoke some English, but to each other and sometimes to Kieran’s partner they spoke in what I think was French. As far as I know the White Witch Councils in Europe have never trained Hunters and never hunted Black Witches like they do in Britain. Gabriel told me that here in Europe the Whites and the Blacks each kept to their own areas and ignored each other, and Hunters were only used in extreme circumstances to track specific witches, my father being one of them. If they’re recruiting local White Witches it seems to be a sign that Hunters are expanding their operations.
I watched them all day. I knew I shouldn’t have. I knew I should have been at the cave waiting for Gabriel but I couldn’t tear myself away. I watched Kieran shout at his partner and remembered the day he and his brothers caught me, cut me, tortured me. I’m more shocked now by what they did than I was at the time. I was fourteen, small, a kid. Kieran would have been twenty-one then, and he made his younger brothers join in, made Connor put the powder on my back, joked about it, joked at their weaknesses as much as mine. And he didn’t just cut and scar me but branded me too: B on the left side of my back and W on the right. And that’s what I am: a Half Code, half Black, half White, not belonging to either side.
And now I’m back a third time. I’ve approached the cottage from above, through the forest. The sun isn’t over the mountain peaks to my left but the sky is light. I’m not sure why I’m here but I won’t stay long. I just want to check on things one last time.
The cottage is built high on the steep valley wall, on the edge of the forest, with an open meadow of grass below. Most of the valley is covered in forest, though the high ridges and peaks are above the treeline and the gray rocks hold some snow in sheltered pockets even in summer. At the top of the valley there is permanent snow and the glacier, and from that runs the river. The river is far below the cottage and can’t be seen from there but still it can be heard: its roaring is constant.
I pad down to the edge of the trees. There are no sounds except for the buzzing in my head that their mobile phones set off. The buzzing is faint, though. Not many phones. Not six. Two, I guess. Both in the cottage. So they must have pretty much given up on Mercury and they think I’ve gone and am not dumb enough to come back. But guess what? Here I am.
It’s properly light now.
I really should go.
But I can’t face sitting at the cave, waiting for Gabriel, when he has to be dead. Yet I want to see Gabriel and I promised him I’d wait, as he promised me, and I know he’d wait more than a month and—
The latch of the cottage door rattles and a Hunter steps out.
I recognize his bulk immediately.
Kieran walks round the cottage, stretches, and yawns, rolls his head on his thick neck as if he’s about to start a boxing match. He goes to the woodpile, selects a large log, and places it end up on the sawn-off tree trunk that acts as a chopping block. He picks up the ax and steps into position. The wood doesn’t stand a chance.
He’s got his back to me. I slide my knife out of its sheath.
Kieran stops. He bends down to pick up the pieces of wood, loads his arms up, walks to the side of the cottage, and stacks the wood. A small bird flies past him, close. A wagtail. It lands by the cottage. Kieran watches it for a few seconds and then swings the ax onto his shoulder and selects another log to be chopped. He starts again.
The knife is still in my hand.
I can kill him now. In ten seconds he’ll be dead. And I want him dead. I know that. But I’ve never killed anyone like this: when I could have walked away. And if I kill him I’d have to flee the valley for sure. If Gabriel was trying to get back to the cave I’d be drawing more Hunters in. But I know Gabriel is dead; I just don’t want to believe it. The Hunters will have killed him: Gabriel, one of the most special, most honest, most understanding of people. And here, alive and well and chopping wood, is one of the least special, most cruel of people. Kieran deserves to die. The planet would be a better place without him.
Kieran is swinging his ax back as I tread down toward him. I can kill him before he knows a thing. He’s vulnerable: the ax is useless if I’m fast, my knife plunged straight into his neck.
I want him dead.
But, but, but . . .
I can’t kill him like this. I want to kill him but not quickly, not like I’d have to do it. I want him to look at me as I kill him, to know it’s me taking all he has, taking his life.
Or am I just thinking up excuses? Am I just unsure?
And the animal in me, the adrenaline, isn’t here at all, as if it doesn’t want any part of this.
The cottage door rattles again, then opens. Shit! I’m in plain sight of the Hunter, who steps out onto the grass. He’s scratching the back of his head, still waking up, and looking down.
I retreat fast. Holding my breath as I run up the slope to the thicker growth of trees and stop under their cover to listen.
Wood is still being chopped.
The chopping stops and I hear faint voices: Kieran’s partner and then Kieran but I can’t make out what they’re saying.
Quiet.
The chopping starts again.
I’ve got away with it.
I run.
You’re Not Dead, Are You?
I’m going to leave the valley. Leave and never come back. I have to find Mercury and work out a new plan to help Annalise, a plan that doesn’t involve Gabriel. But first I head back to the cave. I think I should leave something of mine just in case a miracle happens and Gabriel’s alive and he does, one day, find his way there.
On the way back I stop and sit on the grass to work on a piece of wood that I’d found. I’m making a carving of a small bowie knife, like the one I’m using to carve. I’ll leave the carving in the cave, in the nook at the back where Gabriel put his tin of letters, and then I’ll go and never come back.
While I carve I remember Gabriel giving me the knife . . .
* * *
We’ve been at Mercury’s cottage two days. I’ve only met her once, on the day we arrived, and since then she’s left me to stew and worry that she won’t help me with my Giving. So Gabriel and I fill our days with hiking and swimming. Today we leave Mercury’s cottage just before dawn and set off hard and fast. Gabriel is leading the way and I’m following. Even with his fain body he’s fast. His legs are long: one stride of his covers a third more than mine. We climb up a steep, rock-walled gully and I manage it OK. I’m copying how he does it an
d the holds he uses, and I’m improving but he’s effortless.
At the top of a minor peak he stops and watches me. His eye has healed, though there’s a scab through his left eyebrow and I think he’ll have a small scar—a reminder of how I attacked him when we were at the apartment in Geneva. I could have blinded him.
He holds his hand out to me and I take it so he can pull me up the final step. There isn’t much room on the rock and we stand close together.
The peaks in the far distance have snow on them. It’s cool here but I’m hot.
“You’re panting,” Gabriel says.
“We’re high. The air’s thinner.”
“This bit I’m breathing isn’t so bad.”
I nudge him with my shoulder.
“Don’t start what you can’t finish,” he says, nudging me back.
There is a steep, long drop with sharp rocks behind me and a small drop to a grassy bank behind Gabriel. I push him but not hard and I’m holding his jacket so he doesn’t fall.
He breaks my hold with a sharp lift of his forearm and shoves me back hard with the flat of his hand. I grab his other sleeve, cursing him and pulling myself upright. He’s grinning like an idiot and there’s more pushing and shoving, each push a little harder than the last, until I break his hold on me and with two hands jab him on the shoulders and he’s falling backward, reaching for me, and he’s not smiling and he looks worried. I grab him but I’ve leaned too far and I can’t hold my balance and we fall together. I pull him to me and turn in the air so that I land on my back with him on top.
“Ow!”
I’m on the grassy bank but there are some flat, smooth rocks buried in it and they’re hard in my back.
Gabriel rolls off me and laughs.
I swear at him. “I think I’ve broken a rib.”
“Moan, moan, moan. You English complain all the time.”