by Tim Major
“Russell.” Ixion’s voice was as low as before. Now there was a tinny ring to it as well, as though he too were in a phone box.
“I’ll do it,” Russell said, breathless with his sense of recklessness. He watched Nell on the doorstep of her house, still letting catering staff in and out of the building. She was smiling, as though this were her own party, as if she were excited about the evening to come. Her easy attitude was excruciating to watch and, perversely, seemed only to confirm that she was in great peril. Russell felt a sudden conviction that only he could help her.
“There’s definitely something strange going on,” he said slowly. “I’ll find out, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
The call ended with a click.
* * *
A knock came from the bedroom door. Caitlin tried to ignore it. She put down the pencil and leant back in her chair to better see the portrait. She had done a good job of capturing the light reflected in her eyes. In the drawing she appeared pensive, world-weary, like a queen or a heroine from ancient myth. She glanced into the fixed, angled mirrors: her real face told a different story. The irony was that she felt healthier, more vital, than she could remember ever having been. The shedding had worked perfectly in that sense. Her skin was soft and elastic, her guts free of even the smallest of complaints. Her eyes shone. But the physical state of her body was only partly dictated by her health. The skin around her eyes was puffy and her red hair was matted where she had slept on it.
Another knock. Then, “Caitlin?”
She understood that she was in denial about what had happened. She didn’t care.
“It’s lunchtime, Cait,” her dad said through the door. “I had a go at shepherd’s pie. Didn’t turn out as bad as you’d think.”
“Good work, Dad.”
She waited for his footsteps to pad away. They didn’t.
“Could you bring it up and leave it outside my room?”
“I just want to see your face. Is that okay?” His voice sounded shaky.
She picked up the pencil, then dropped it again. It rattled on the desk and fell to the floor. With a sigh, she got up and unlocked the door. Her father stood uncertainly on the threshold of the room.
“I’m all right,” she said.
“Sure.”
She didn’t like the doubt in his voice. It was up to her to decide whether she was coping or not. She turned away from him and pretended to look at the posters on the walls. It had been years since she had replaced any of them, and now she was too old for the kiddie films, and most of the singers had long since retired. The only picture she really liked was a framed photograph she’d taken herself on a walk with her mum. It showed three trees, side by side. They had been up at Shotover Hill, just off the path where locals paraded their dogs. The leftmost tree was no more than a sapling, the second one larger with blossom beginning to emerge on its branches. The third was wider, with a cracked trunk and two branches that drooped down, as though they had become too heavy to be supported.
“Tobe’s locked himself away in his shed,” Ian said.
“Nothing strange about that.” She whirled around. “Hey. Are you trying to say something about Charmers in general? Are you saying we can’t cope?”
Ian held up his hands. “I’m just saying I’ve got two people to worry about. Three, if you count Evie. She keeps calling, you know.”
“So it’s all about you, then, is it? Your responsibilities?”
He looked hurt. Caitlin’s hands bunched into fists. “Sorry.”
“You can’t stay in here, you know.”
“Why not? It’s obviously the place to be. She wanted to be in here, didn’t she?”
“Oh, Cait. You can’t let yourself think like this.”
But she couldn’t help it. The Snakeskin had tried to get upstairs. She had had a chance to escape – not a strong one, but a chance all the same – and instead she had tried to get into Caitlin’s bedroom.
When she had excused herself after dinner yesterday, Caitlin had experienced a renewed sense of shock when she entered her bedroom. It had suddenly become alien. She hadn’t really looked at it, properly, for as long as she could remember. The piles of clothes, the holiday keepsakes, the art materials on the desk – layers and layers of evidence of the life she had lived. A plush orangutan peering out from behind the laundry basket, a hand puppet that hadn’t been worn for maybe a decade. A wooden wall-rack holding a collection of porcelain thimbles inherited from her gran, who had died in a factory fire before Caitlin was born – even at the time the newspaper reports had noted the peculiarity of a Charmer choosing to take on menial work.
If the Snakeskin had managed to make it up here to the bedroom, what would she have thought about all of these things? From her second-hand memories she would have known the stories and significance of every last item. But there would have been a difference, all the same. Caitlin thought of it in these terms: if she were diagnosed with a terminal illness, and then she stood here in this room, she would certainly see all these objects in a new light. Knowing that she had limited time would mean that she could take nothing for granted. Everything would be painfully poignant.
She felt utterly miserable.
She realised that her dad was crying.
Of course he was suffering, too. That whole scene yesterday must have been almost as traumatic for him as it had been for her. She remembered the scuffle in the hallway. Ian and the government woman, wrestling with the Snakeskin. How much had that hurt him? The girl looked exactly like Caitlin. It might as well have been her. And he had helped bundle her into a van to be taken away to who knew where.
“Dad.”
Ian nodded several times, but then his head didn’t lift up.
“Come here.” Caitlin put her arms around him. His body trembled. “I’m okay, Dad.”
He shuddered, wave after wave. Over his shoulder, out of the window, Caitlin saw Tobe emerge from his shed. He wore a thick coat and carried a heavy-looking hiking rucksack. She couldn’t blame her uncle for abandoning them.
Ian Hext was all but alone. She wished she knew how to reassure him. She wished he hadn’t had to touch the Snakeskin. This was why it was against the rules. It was too upsetting.
The word ‘everyone’ made her pause. Again, guilt grew within her. This wasn’t only about the Hext family. There was another person involved.
The Snakeskin.
“She’s okay,” she said.
“Yes,” Ian said in a strangled voice. “I think she’s okay.”
“It’s trace memories, that’s all. Dead skin plus an illusion. It’s convincing, but it’s not real. She’s not real. And they don’t last long. She’s probably already gone, overnight.”
Ian’s shuddering stopped.
She froze, too, then pushed him away gently. “Dad. Do you know something?”
He didn’t raise his eyes. He rubbed at one cheek.
“Dad. Is she gone?”
Their eyes met, only for a second. “No.”
She watched his crumpling face. There was something else going on here. Some other reason for him being guilty and upset.
Of course.
“Dad. Have you been—”
“I had to go. She’s okay. Safe.”
While Caitlin had been prowling around in her bedroom all morning she had found a small sense of reassurance in the fact that her dad had been downstairs, ready to console her when she needed it. Instead, he had been racing off around the country.
“What the hell, Dad? So you’re more concerned about a Snakeskin, rather than your own daughter?”
“I’m sorry. I know it looks bad.”
“I’m the one who’s flesh and blood, Dad. That thing, it’s a waste product. A trick.”
“Her,” Ian said, frowning. “Not it. Her.”
Caitlin tried to push him out of the door, but her dad held firm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I understand that it’s strange. But I couldn’t not go. I’m
certain you understand, deep down.”
Caitlin clasped her hands together; they were shaking badly. “I’m your daughter. She – it – isn’t even a person, let alone a member of the family.”
Ian sighed. “I understand. I know all the arguments. All I can say is, she looked like a person. She seemed like one, in every way that matters. She seemed like you.”
“Right. Fine. So here I was, crying to myself. And you just thought to yourself, ‘I know what I can do to help. I’ll abandon my daughter and go and see some stranger – some alien-meteor-shower freak of nature – who reminds me of her, instead.’ Is that it?”
Ian’s shoulders slumped. “You wouldn’t even let me in the room.”
“Oh, fine! So you went to see someone who would? I bet that bitch welcomed you with open arms.”
“Stop that. But of course she was glad to see me. I’m not trying to hurt you, Cait. I still think it was the right thing to do.”
Rather than look him in the eyes, Caitlin concentrated on the tuft of hair in the centre of his forehead. Her dad wasn’t a bad man. He wouldn’t know how to be bad. And he hadn’t betrayed her, exactly. She forced herself to take deep breaths.
“Tell me about this place, where she is,” she said.
“A home. A care home, sort of. North of Reading, out of town. There are others like her there.”
“Is it nice?”
“It’s big. Impressive.” He chewed his cheek. “Yes, nice, I suppose. They’ll take care of her.”
“How long does she have left?” Caitlin couldn’t imagine what might be a reassuring answer.
“They don’t know.” Now it was Ian’s turn to examine the posters on the walls.
“There’s something else you’re not telling me.”
Her dad shuffled past her and into the room. He sat heavily at the foot of Caitlin’s bed. “Your mum. The same thing happened with hers.”
A chill ran through Caitlin’s body. “Her Skins?”
He nodded. “They didn’t ash, not straight away. They always lasted longer than most. We – I – thought she was a one-off, a fluke. When Tobe’s first two Skins stuck around for only a handful of seconds, it seemed reasonable enough to assume—”
Caitlin found that she couldn’t stop shivering. “How long did they last?”
“It varied.”
“How long?”
Ian placed his hands on his knees and straightened his posture. “The shortest was about a day. They didn’t have government people witnessing each shedding back then, so the Skin was held in the local magistrate’s court until the government came and got her. They said she ashed on the way to the care home.”
“And the longest?”
“It’s so unlikely that it would be repeated. There must have been something particular—”
“Dad. Just tell me.”
He took a deep breath. “Five months.”
She stared at him. Her hands covered her mouth. She gazed out of the window, at the open door of Tobe’s shed. Below the windowsill, her self-portrait sketch rested on its easel, staring at her blankly.
“Five months,” she repeated. “Five months, in one of these care homes? When?”
“It was your mum’s final one. I’m not sure there’s a pattern. The Skin before that one lasted only a few days, the one before that, weeks.”
“So this happened when I was—” she frowned, trying to do the calculations “—fourteen? And you didn’t think I ought to be told?”
Ian gazed up at the ceiling. His face was sickly pale. “More like fifteen, I think.”
But Caitlin had been fifteen when her mum had died, when the truck had blindsided her Astra and crushed it against the brick wall of a newsagent. Her mum’s last shedding had been only shortly before that. Caitlin hadn’t been allowed to the shedding but they all went out for pizzas afterward. To celebrate.
A realisation hit her like a slap. “Mum’s shedding was two months before the accident.”
Ian nodded slowly.
“And her Snakeskin lasted for five months.”
This time there was no nod.
“So the Skin kept on living for three months after Mum died.”
“If you can call it living.”
She looked around for something to hold onto, to keep her steady. “And you visited her – the Skin – afterwards.”
It wasn’t a question. She thought of the time directly after her mum’s death. Caitlin had shut herself away, just as she was doing now. Her dad’s response had been to take an extended leave from his teaching position at the local sixth-form college, which had eventually turned into early retirement. He had kept himself to himself, too. He’d often left the house for whole days, saying that he’d discovered a passion for long walks. But even then Caitlin had understood that he was telling lies. He’d always taken the car.
She tried to imagine him, back then. Visiting the Skin in the care home, after his wife Janet was dead and buried. How had he described Caitlin’s Skin? She seemed like you.
The thought filled her with revulsion. Without speaking, she opened her wardrobe. Tobe had the right idea, heading off with his rucksack, getting away from this sick house. She found an old sports bag and began stuffing clothes into it.
Her dad didn’t say anything. He was probably being swallowed up by his guilt.
Would her mum’s Skin have been similar enough for Ian to treat her as his wife? Perhaps. He would have been grieving, after all. Desperate to gain more time with the woman he loved.
And there were the trace memories, of course. Janet Hext’s memories. The Skin could have indulged Ian’s nostalgia, contributing Janet’s recollection of each of his cherished memories. Solidifying them in his mind, ready for when she, too, left him.
It might have been more than that. There must have been a temptation. A woman so much like his wife. Caitlin tried not to imagine them hugging. Kissing. It would have been a betrayal.
Her dad looked tiny, crouched on the bed. Caitlin didn’t dare ask him any more questions. She wasn’t sure she could bear to see him try to lie – or even worse, try to tell the truth.
She had no idea whether the clothes she had shoved into the bag were enough.
“I’m going away,” she said. “For a while. Don’t try to follow me.”
With his legs hanging loosely over the edge of the bed, it was as if Ian were the child, not her. His face was grey, though. Old.
Caitlin slung the bag over her shoulder and left, hurrying in case she lost her courage.
SEVEN
Ixion had arrived before Russell. He was sitting on a bench in the centre of the children’s playground, as though he had sat down when it was daylight and hadn’t noticed that it was now night.
Russell pushed open the yellow gate. Already, he felt as though he were committing a crime, or at least something morally wrong. On the phone, Ixion had been insistent. Eleven o’clock – coinciding with the start of the curfew, though being out on the streets after that time was hardly the most significant of their misdemeanours – and at this precise location. During his walk across town, Russell had tried to ease his anxiety by conjuring up ridiculous visions: finding the stranger on a swing, or at the top of the helter-skelter slide. The small playground was unlit – the lamps on the tarmac path alongside didn’t penetrate through the trees – and silent as a graveyard. There were houses nearby, but none of their windows overlooked the playground.
The man’s hood was pulled up. He wore a thick overcoat despite the lack of chill in the air. A beer can rested on one knee. Russell could smell it, too, but he couldn’t tell whether it was from the can or from the man’s breath.
“Drowning your sorrows?” Russell said.
“Anyone passing would assume that I am a drunk.”
“Or a psycho. I looked up your name, by the way. Ixion, the Greek king who slept with Zeus’s wife and then got himself imprisoned in Tartarus. Aspirational stuff.”
The man’s only response was to pa
t the bench. Russell sat. Even sitting here beside him, Ixion was only a shadow, a void against the grey leaves of the trees. Was he wearing a balaclava, or a scarf covering his mouth? It was impossible to tell. There might as well have been no face there.
“You have information?” The man’s voice was halting, almost machinelike, and peculiarly deep.
“How do I know it’s safe to tell you anything?”
“You don’t. But you want to tell somebody, and you have nobody else.”
It felt like a personal insult rather than a comment about his status at work. But either way, it was true. Only Ixion, who had put the conspiratorial ideas into his head in the first place, would give his stories any credence.
Russell noticed the flash of a blue light, somewhere low down. Ixion changed his sitting position. The light disappeared.
“I need you to tell me something first,” Russell said. “What’s kind of trouble is Nell Blackwood in?”
After a pause, Ixion replied, “I shouldn’t have mentioned her. It wasn’t my intention.”
“But you did. And I need to know.”
The man let out a sound somewhere between a hum and a growl. “I wish I knew. I have no desire to lie to you about this. I’m convinced that she’s under threat, but without your help I have no information to give you about Mrs Blackwood.”
Russell contemplated this. Ixion would refuse to volunteer information without Russell demonstrating his intention to collaborate. It was equally deluded to imagine that he would explain about Nell once Russell provided him with the details he had overhead at Ellis’s party. But he could think of no other options.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”
The man sipped his beer. Then he bowed his head like a priest waiting to hear a confession.
“I think you were right about Minister Blackwood having colleagues nearby. I don’t know how you knew, but you were right. There’s something fishy about the whole office complex. People coming and going that just don’t fit, and it all involves Ellis. I swear I’m surrounded by people who are in on the joke. I think I may be the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on. Perhaps you should ask one of them to give you information.”