This Is Our Undoing

by Lorraine Wilson

  ‘He’s upstairs.’

  Silene and Genni and Lina all flinched. Dev and Thiago were standing at the base of the stairs and it was Dev who had spoken, his face drawn and exhausted, his wet hair unruly.

  ‘He’s safe, Silene,’ coming to her side, crouching down and taking her hand. ‘Lina found him. He’s safe.’

  Silene studied his face dazedly. ‘That’s good, Dev darling. That’s good then.’ Tears began to run down her sallow cheeks and Dev sat back on his heels, turning to look at Thiago, who met his gaze without expression.

  Genni rose, looking from Silene to Lina uncertainly. ‘Silene killed Xander’s dad?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dev said before Lina could. ‘I believe she did.’

  ‘What?’ Xander said. He was standing behind Thiago, in shadow and blankets, leaning against the wall as if it was the only thing holding him up. ‘What?’

  Thiago took hold of him with that shocking gentleness which he so rarely showed strangers and led him away again, and Lina said into the quiet and the storm, ‘I need coffee.’

  Dev bowed his head briefly, then rose to his feet. Kai had moved, standing against the door with the fox skull held in both hands. But as Lina opened her mouth to say something, anything, Genni pulled her other boot off and she cried out, her head spinning in darkness.

  ‘Oh god sorry, oh god–’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Lina said quickly, nausea rising, Genni’s face fracturing then coalescing again. ‘It’s okay.’ And when she looked again, Kai had gone.

  It was Dev who made the coffee and Thiago who knelt at her feet cursing, stripping away her socks and wiping blood from her skin. ‘This will need restitching,’ he said, scowling up at her and the simple ferociousness of it made her smile. She did not know anymore where the balance of her world lay. It had been lost and now perhaps it was not. She did not know, too cold and hurting and shocked, too close still to the realisation that even to save her family, she could not make herself a monster. That by failing to become one monster, she was simply a different one. She had thought she was stronger than that and now she did not know. She did not know.

  ‘Xander?’ Dev said, setting mugs down on the bench. Coffee for herself and Thiago, a thick, aromatic hot chocolate for Genni. Lina smiled up at him unthinkingly as Thiago wrapped gauze firmly around her ankle.

  ‘Resting,’ he said, rising to his feet unusually awkward due to the blade and fatigue and likely a dozen other things. ‘It’s over, I think.’ Looking at Dev who looked at Lina to reply.

  ‘Agreed.’

  Lina pulled Genni back into her arms and rested her bruised cheek against her sister’s dense hair.

  It was as she watched Genni drink the dregs of her chocolate with something like contentment that Lina remembered Kai. She rose, wincing, and went towards the door.

  ‘It’s passing,’ Dev said just as Thiago said, ‘Don’t you dare.’

  ‘What happened?’ Lina asked. She ought to have asked before, but there had been Silene, and then Genni’s small, brown hands wrapped around a mug that smelled of heaven.

  Thiago and Dev shared a quick, hooded glance. Even if Genni had not been here, they would not have told her everything. But she had been out there too, differently, so she could imagine.

  ‘There were three of them. They offered us Silene or the station.’ Thiago lifted one shoulder, showing no inclination to add anything more.

  Lina looked at Dev.

  ‘We got two, the other one ran. The storm seemed to be on our side, plus Ferdinando here is pretty useful, it turns out.’

  Thiago shifted his gaze from Lina, but Lina said to him quietly, ‘I’m glad.’ Her hand against the old wood of the door, feeling its tremors subsiding.

  He had made the choice she had been unable to. Because it was more immediate perhaps, or because he was stronger.

  Beyond the door came the sound of laughter. High as a bird and clear, and as Lina turned towards it she saw the other three do the same.

  ‘What–’ Dev said, but Lina was already moving.

  ‘I’m just going to look,’ she said, stepping out into wind that was terrible but not deadly, rain that was only runoff from the roof. The clouds were more than leaden darkness now; they had contours and shades. Lightning scattered laterally and Lina saw a pale figure at the edge of the courtyard, his face upturned, silvery hair lifting.

  ‘Kai,’ she said and he turned, laughing again. Genni was beside Lina; they put their arms around one another and even if Genni could not see what Lina saw, she watched.

  ‘I did it,’ Kai called. ‘I stopped them, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lina said. ‘You did.’

  ‘And I protected Genni, and I saved you from the monsters.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lina said again.

  ‘I was fierce.’

  ‘You have always been fierce.’

  Kai laughed as the clouds above them roiled and shuddered. ‘I killed the monsters,’ he shouted and laughed again, spinning on one heel, running into the meadow with his arms stretched high.

  ‘No,’ Lina called. ‘Kai, wait.’ But Genni pulled on her hips like an anchor and Kai did not stop running.

  The clouds stilled, light fractured the world and Lina screamed, static and blindness shaking her bones and when the light was gone, the meadow was a little brighter than it had been, the clouds turned silver. And Kai was gone.

  Lina stared out at the storm-shattered meadow, but there was no pale child seeking monsters. Thunder pulsed around them and someone laughed.

  ‘Lina,’ Genni said, and Lina realised she was weeping again, her eyes scalding, Genni’s hand pulling her back inside.

  ‘What was that?’ Dev asked. Lina took a breath, then another, wiped her face clear. Thiago leaned against the bench watching her steadily, without judgement or disbelief or surprise.

  ‘Just the lightning,’ she said.

  Chapter Forty

  Xander did not wake for two days, as the rains slowly stopped and sunlight turned the meadow into phantasmagoria of steam. As trees stopped falling and the first miraculous bees emerged, as frogs resumed singing in their overflowing pools. Two days to begin repairs and listen to Genni recounting the storm, her fear, Thiago’s bravery with the words shaking her less and less each time. With Silene sleeping, crying, sleeping; and if some of Xander’s sleep was healing then some of it, Lina thought, was also escape.

  Two days. Thiago gently restitching Lina’s wounds, them talking of all the things about each other that they had guessed, and learned, but not really shared. Realising that knowing each other’s past selves and worst selves still changed nothing about who they were to each other now, here.

  Two days without news. Lina did not know how she continued to breathe.

  ‘Was there a right choice?’ she asked Thiago eventually, watching Dev persuade Silene to eat, wondering whether he would still have come if he had known from the beginning, and thinking yes, he would have done.

  Thiago narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Sometimes there just isn’t.’

  Lina nodded. Genni was scrolling news sites, mapping the storm’s destruction like it was a tally of their own survival.

  ‘But given that choice,’ Thiago added, ‘you chose to do what would hurt you most. Many people wouldn’t have done that.’

  She smiled at him just a little, unconvinced. The net was back up but she had heard nothing.

  ‘He’ll wait,’ Thiago said. Then repeated it. ‘He’ll wait for you.’

  Then the ESF telemedic sent a message to Lina’s tablet saying that Xander was awake, so she rose and went upstairs.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, coming to sit on the bed beside his knee. His eyes were drowsy but she knew he had remembered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as if he had been repeating it in his mind. As if he had been hearing it
repeat itself.

  ‘Just don’t run off into any more storms for a while.’

  He frowned, shook his head. ‘I don’t mean that.’

  ‘Oh,’ she had not let herself think about this, but realised she knew what to say. ‘No, don’t be. You were fighting for someone you love. There’s nothing to be ashamed about in that.’

  ‘But she wasn’t–’ he cut himself off abruptly and Lina wanted to say, no, you are right. She was not a good person, nor was she worth what you would have made us pay.

  ‘She’s your mother,’ she said quietly. ‘You will love her anyway, even though she betrayed you. And that’s okay.’

  Xander turned his head against the pillow, the light from the drawn curtains a shimmering gold. Lina did not speak, or even watch him, instead studying the cut across her palm that had left blood on Genni’s skin.

  ‘Where’s Dev?’ Xander said eventually, sounding no older than Genni.

  ‘I’ll get him,’ she said, and rose.

  ‘Weather window this afternoon for their airlift,’ Thiago said the next day. There was a pearlescent fog lying in the meadow but the sun’s soft halo was slowly strengthening. ‘I really do need to clear that rockslide.’

  Lina looked at him narrowly. ‘Good idea.’

  A half-smile. ‘I’m not apologising.’

  No, but she had forgiven him anyway. What might have been different if the others had left before the storm, if she had left too and tried to cross a weather-paralysed Europe without ESF help and without a plan? Xander might have carried out his threat, her father might be dead. She might be dead, and Genni lost yet again. Xander might not have done anything after all; she doubted even he knew whether his grief would have trumped his understanding of what his father had been.

  When Xander came to find her and Thiago, he had something small in one hand, fingers moving it restlessly. Lina knew her job; it was a canine tooth from a small carnivore. ‘You ready to leave?’ she said.

  Neither Thiago nor Lina had asked Xander what he was going to do. She had wanted to, but his terrible pallor, his silence, had stopped her. Dev must have done so, and she guessed at what he would have said. ‘Are you going to Paris?’

  ‘So my mum isn’t arrested, you mean?’ His voice both dull and angry.

  Yes, that was what Lina meant. She looked at him helplessly. I know, she wanted to say. And I’m so sorry. It doesn’t get easier but you survive it, you carry on. ‘Dev will look after you.’ Possibly. With luck.

  Xander looked out at the shrouded, watercolour meadow. Somewhere, a thrush began to sing, its mere existence a miracle.

  ‘This airlift,’ Xander said to Thiago. ‘ESF only, is it?’

  A nod.

  ‘People you know?’

  Another nod, the tiniest, tiniest hint of a smile. Lina began to realise that there was a third option after London and Paris.

  ‘Thing is,’ Xander began, looking at the wall behind them, the fox’s tooth roving between his fingers. ‘If they could, like ... forget Mum and I were on board, we can ... I swear it’s not to cause trouble, I just...’

  ‘You have somewhere to go?’ Thiago sounded unsurprised, but satisfied. Xander stilled.

  ‘Tromsø.’

  ‘Tromsø?’ Lina said. ‘But that’s–’ A malaria ridden border-town full of the exiled and the rebellion.

  ‘I know,’ Xander interrupted her. ‘But I ... know some people there. And I can sort the IDs and stuff.’

  ‘But she...’ This time Lina cut herself off. She killed your father, she wanted to say. Don’t throw your life away to keep her safe. You are worth more than that, more than both of them.

  She thought fleetingly of a video she had watched long ago. The way Xander had not spoken to his mother, but had sat with her at night.

  It was such a terrible weight for one young man to carry.

  ‘You aren’t responsible for her, you know,’ she said eventually, inadequately. ‘Or for anything they did. And you aren’t to blame for...’ lifting her hands in a gesture that made no sense and yet he still understood.

  He looked at her with a sort of sad gratitude, then shrugged and surprised her by saying, ‘I don’t want Dev to have to risk it, for us I mean.’

  Lina studied his restless hands and thought that he would not have worried about such a thing a few days ago.

  ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘I think I’ve run out of time. ESF were onto me, so London would have been soon. It’s safer for me too.’

  Thiago lifted his chin in agreement, but Lina said, ‘ESF could use you though. Someone as good as you. They grant immunity.’

  He had clearly not thought of that and took the time to consider it. The contours of his face were clearer now, some of the veneer burned away. ‘Thanks,’ he said eventually. ‘Not yet though. I need to sort things out first. And ... and think.’ Looking at Thiago again, waiting.

  Thiago held his gaze, then nodded once. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Next time, don’t tell us where you’re going.’

  Xander shifted, met Lina’s gaze very steadily. ‘I destroyed it, you know. No-one’ll find any of it now. Not ever.’ He lifted one shoulder then turned away as if he had not just changed the world.

  Silene climbed into the helicopter unresisting, but when Xander sat beside her, she clutched at his hand and began again to cry. He did not try to comfort her, but only wrapped his fingers around hers and met Lina’s gaze without blinking. She and Thiago were both reaching out, quietly, to people who could keep a kind of guard. She had not told Xander, because she thought it would hurt him to hear it, but it was something he could discover himself if he looked.

  The sky was shorn of clouds finally, the fog sunk back into the wet earth and the swifts had returned to weave their tapestries above the meadow. Lina lifted a hand and Xander nodded to her.

  ‘If you’re ever in Paris,’ Dev said, hefting a bag into the helicopter and reaching out a hand for hers. She gave it to him and said goodbye.

  Once the helicopter had passed beyond view, the station seemed abandoned; grasses and nascent flower heads slowly righting themselves in the meadow. Thiago put his hand on her shoulder, just as she had done with Genni in the dying storm. ‘I’m off to blow up some rocks,’ he said. They shared a smile, no sound but a blackcap singing and a buzzard calling for its mate.

  She sat at her desk, picked up her tablet, and there waiting for her as if time had never mattered at all, was a message from an account she did not recognise.

  Please, she thought one last time.

  I’m out and on my way. I love you both.

  Time passed, another miraculous bird began to sing, and eventually Lina brushed her hands over her face then turned them up to the sun to let them dry. Then she rose to find her sister, making in her mind a list of all the things that she would do when she returned. Help Thiago make repairs, clear their tracks of fallen wood, check for lost tags and damaged base-stations, locate the mother bear and her cubs out to the east, pray that they had survived.

  Wait to hear from Xander, surprised at how much she wanted to.

  Persuade Iva to come back. Say goodbye to James once more.

  Remember her mother more often.

  But first, but first she would go to her father, and bring him home.

  Acknowledgments

  If you are reading these then thank you, reader, for getting to the end of my book. I cannot tell you how surreal it feels to think of strangers reading a story that once existed only in my head, and I so hope you enjoyed it.

  To get the important thanks out of the way – the cats. Thank you for sitting on my keyboard at inopportune moments, for yowling at me, and for pretending to listen when I talk to you.

  Thank you to Francesca Barbini and everyone at Luna Press Publishing for being so truly supportive of writers for whom the doors of publishing might otherwi
se remain firmly closed. I am so lucky. A huge thank you also to Francesca for seeing the soul of this book, and to Daniele Serra for cover artwork that captured it so beautifully.

  I am incredibly fortunate in having writerly friends who have encouraged, critiqued, given proverbial kicks-up-arses, and generally never let me give up hope even when I’ve wanted to. The Randoms, and my SE group, I love you all. Fiona Erskine, Jane Jesmond, Knicky Laurelle, and Matt Willis all beta read an early version of this book, and their comments and belief were beyond price. Fiona, Jane and Shell Bromley in particular all managed to catch me mid-fall and set me back on my feet, thank you, you gorgeous things.

  To the forests of Eastern Europe and Russia – may you long outlive us all. And thank you to the wolves for not eating me those two times, it was much appreciated.

  Finally, my family. My mum and sister, Shelagh and Jennifer, have believed in my ability to do this whole writing thing from the absolute start. They courageously read the earliest and most terrible drafts of everything, and their unstinting love and support make me braver than I would otherwise be. My mum raised me on a strange and varied diet of books that shaped my entire world view (reading Solzhenitsyn at twelve is … formative…), so if I don’t write happy stories she only has herself to blame, but the fact that I write at all is also her doing. Thank you to Len and Stuart too, who have both unfailingly cheered me on from the sidelines. And Jared and Meghan, aside from the writing, you two have perforce shared the chronic illness ‘journey’ with me as well, which is not the easiest task in the world, but you are the centre of that world and I could not do any of this without you. Jared, you are my safe haven and you make the best cups of tea. Meghan, I’m really sorry about the skull in pond thing – I’ll get it into another book, I promise.