He looks up and sees my face; his softens. He shakes his head. “Whatever has happened to my sister, it isn’t your doing. I just thought—well.” He reaches into his pocket again and takes out another photo. “I thought it might have been this man.” His glance at the image says more than words: he hates him.
I take the photo. Of an older man, with longish, silvery-gray hair, lots of it. Piercing blue eyes, movie-star looks—or presence, or something, even just in a photograph. He is vaguely familiar, as if he’d been in a film I’ve seen and then forgotten. But it’s not the man I saw with Calista. “It’s not him. He’s nothing like him.”
“Are you sure? Are you really sure?”
Because I know he wants me to, I look again, really look. And it’s weird, but there definitely is something about him that triggers some memory inside. But not quite as he is in the photo. Not with silver hair? I frown, trying to find the memory, then shake my head; this isn’t what Kai wants to know. “It’s not the man I saw with your sister.” I look back at Kai. “Who is he?”
“He was my stepfather. Mum divorced him a few years ago.”
“And you think he’d take your sister?”
“He would do anything to hurt mum. Will you come with me to talk to the police, to tell them what you saw?”
“Of course.”
“Can you show me where you saw her?”
I nod. “Yes. It’ll have to be in daylight.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow.”
The fierce energy that had me caught so intently in his gaze is fading. He looks drawn, tired.
“Where have you come from today?”
“Newcastle.”
“You don’t sound very Geordie.”
He half smiles. “No. We’ve only lived there for about five years; before that, many other places. Germany originally. You don’t sound very Scottish…?”
I shake my head. “I’m not. Well, my mum is. She’s from around here, but we moved from London over a year ago. Her Aunt Addy died and left her this house, so I got dragged to the middle of nowhere, and—” I stop abruptly when I realize I’m babbling. Shut up, Shay. He doesn’t want to know about your pathetic family dramas.
“I’d best get going.” He stretches and reaches for his bike jacket.
I hesitate. I know what Mum would do if she were here.
“Newcastle is a long way to ride tonight and back tomorrow. The sofa is free if you want it.”
“Complete with company?” he says, and heat climbs in my cheeks.
His eyes move to Ramsay the bear and back again, and he grins. Laughter is in his eyes as if he knows what I thought he meant, as completely stupid as it could be to think he’d want anything to do with me.
“Well, you’ll have to ask Ramsay about that. He might prefer solo on the chair.”
“Don’t you need to check with your parents?”
“It’s just me and my mum. She’s at work at the pub and will be back in a few hours. Besides, she’ll be fine with it.”
His smile falls away, like it is an expression that rarely settles on his face for long. “That reminds me. I’d better call my mother and tell her what you’ve said.”
He slips outside. I can hear him speaking in another language—they’re from Germany, he said; it must be German. The words have no meaning to me, but his voice is music. When he speaks English, the deliberate way he frames words is almost textbook perfect. No trace of Newcastle or anything else to place him.
I text Mum. He’s here and hasn’t murdered me. Can he have the sofa tonight? Wants me to show him where I saw his sister tomorrow and talk to the police.
She texts back in seconds, so quick I know she had her phone in her hand, waiting for word from me. Of course. Make him some dinner. Are you okay on your own? Is he nice?
His voice still sounds like music outside in the darkness; sad music now, like the scene in the opera where everything goes wrong. Is he nice? Not like puppies are nice. There is something deeply unsettling about the intensity of his eyes—a sense that he has too many demons inside him.
He comes back in, stands awkwardly in the doorway. The anger has been replaced by sadness, one so deep it isn’t something I’ve ever felt in my own life. I wish I had something to tell him that could take it away.
I text back: Yes.
CHAPTER 7
CALLIE
SHETLAND INSTITUTE
Time Zero: 26 hours
I FOLLOW THE WHISTLING TECH and the vacuum bag marked Subject 369X down corridors, through doors. Every one has a double locking mechanism, so you go through one door, wait for it to lock behind you, then go through another door. I stay close to them so I don’t get trapped.
But then one door doesn’t lead to another. Instead, when we go through it, we are in a room with benches and fancy equipment—some sort of science lab? There are two scientists there, also suited up like the techs in shiny jumpsuits.
The whistling tech stops whistling. “Got another one for you, doc,” he says, and one of the scientists gets up and takes the bag with 369X on it.
“Ah yes, the X girl,” he says. “How interesting.”
The techs leave; I stay in the lab, stay with my bag. One of the scientists takes it. He opens a door at the back and steps into a room. I follow. Where his breath exits his suit there is white mist. It must be a cold room, not that I can feel it, and it’s huge. Inside are bags hanging on a sort of conveyor belt thing from the ceiling by hooks, all like my one. All with numbers.
He presses a button near the door, and the conveyor moves on a track—like at a dry cleaner’s. Bag after bag goes slowly by. Then it stops. There is an empty hook between 368 and 370; he hangs my bag there.
Were all these bags once people, like me? With names, not numbers.
I’m not 369X. I’m not!
I will never, ever be a number again.
I AM CALLIE!
CHAPTER 8
SHAY
KILLIN, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 25 hours
MY BLANKETS ARE PULLED AROUND ME, but I’m not sleepy.
Mum came home early. She said it was quiet at work, but I doubt that was true.
But I was glad when she got here. We’d already had dinner—pasta, the only halfway decent thing I can make—and Kai had been polite, said it was good, and generally spoke when spoken to. He answered my pathetic attempts at conversation enough for me to know that it is just him and his mum in Newcastle, that he finished his A levels this year and should go to university after the summer. The way he said should sounded like he wasn’t going to go. That his mum is some kind of doctor and does research. And he even helped me wash up. But I could tell he didn’t want to talk, that he wanted to be alone. Even though it was early for a Friday night, I was about to fake a yawn and escape upstairs when Mum got home. But it still rankled when she pretty much sent me to bed like a child.
Below, voices rise and fall—a murmur, not words I can make out. Just Mum mostly, and his short replies.
So he won’t even open up to Mum?
I’m surprised. Whenever somebody has a problem—a broken heart, a death in the family, a bad hair day, whatever—they seek her out. That’s why they love Mum at the pub: people come in to talk to her and have a few drinks while they do. She says it’s all about how you listen.
After a while their voices have stilled. The house is silent, dark. It’s taken me a long time to learn to fall asleep in complete silence. After London traffic, sirens, and people singing or shouting at all hours in the street below, the silence of this isolated house is deafening.
What I must try to do now is this: I must remember. If I can picture the moment I saw Calista clearly in my mind, maybe there will be something that will help.
As I told Kai, my memory is photographic, but only if I’m paying close attention. And I must have been, to recognize Calista from a photo so readily. The trick is retrieving the memory after so much time—finding the links that will lead me there. Then I’
ll be able to study it in detail, as if my memory is a video I can watch—one I can pause, rewind, and go over again and again.
Think, Shay, think…
CHAPTER 9
CALLIE
SHETLAND INSTITUTE, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 24 hours
MY FAULT. I should have followed the scientist out of the cold room, but I was so angry I didn’t realize he was leaving until the door clanged shut. Then the lights dimmed, and I was alone.
I press myself against the walls, the door, the floor, even the ceiling, but it’s no good. The room is completely sealed. What is the point of being a ghost if you can’t even pass through walls?
I look around me, and hanging everywhere are bags. Like mine. I’m uneasy. If they are all full of the ashes of dead people too, are they ghosts like me? Where are they all? How many are there?
So many.
Panic is starting inside. Breathe in and out and count to ten—that’s what they used to say when I panicked. Try to stop it before it really gets started. But how do you do that when you don’t breathe anymore?
I’ll count. Count the bags, from the beginning.
I follow the overhead conveyor around to the start, find a bag labeled number 1, and begin: 1, 2, 3, 4…99, 100, 101…243, 244, 245…
I count and count. They go all the way up to 368, then me: 369X. Then they carry on: 370, 371, 372, and on, up to 403. Many empty hooks wait past that. Why are there so many bags in place past mine? I must have been behind schedule.
None of the others have Xs on them; just numbers. What does the X mean?
Over four hundred dead people hang in this room.
Including me. My ashes hang, just there.
I’m dead. They’re dead.
Where are their ghosts? Will they come out in the night?
Is it day or night right now? I don’t know.
I’m scared. I roll myself into a little ball and throw myself at the door.
“Let me out!” I howl, and I do it again, and again, and again.
The panic and rage are growing, more and more, becoming a wave of heat that washes over me, and then—
Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
A faint alarm is sounding. Is it somewhere outside this door?
Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
A moment passes, and then the door starts to open. I throw myself through it while it is still moving, straight into the scientist who hung me up in there before.
He stops in his tracks. There are two technicians behind him; they push past him with an impatient look and go in.
“I don’t understand why the temperature was rising,” one of the techs says, after checking some dials and screens. “It’s correct now. All the settings are correct. Everything is working just the way it should.”
“It’s weird, though,” the scientist says. “When I opened the door, it felt like a blast of heat in my face.”
The tech turns to look at the scientist. “The temperature sensors are all normal now. And you can’t feel external temperature changes when you’re in your biohazard suit. You know that.”
The scientist draws himself up. “Well, just keep an eye on it tonight,” he says, and stomps away to the door of the lab.
I follow quickly behind him; I’m getting out of here. I slip through the door, close on his heels—leaving all the bags of ashes of dead people behind.
Including mine.
CHAPTER 10
SHAY
KILLIN, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 23 hours
IT IS LATE AT NIGHT when I finally find the way to my memory of that day and replay it all in my mind, as if it were happening now:
The sun shines, but it is cool in the shade of the wood.
I’m watching her—dark hair, red hoodie—catching glimpses through the trees below. She walks closer and closer.
I want to yell out to her to wait for me there. Tell her to get on the back of my bike, that I’ll double her back down and take her to the police, or call Kai. But I can’t go back in time; I’m paralyzed, stuck. Forced to relive what happened.
Exactly as it happened.
She’s nearly reached me.
“Hello, are you lost?”
“It’s just me; don’t be scared. Are you lost?”
She turns. Her eyes are blue, yes, but not a boring medium-blue like mine—hers are so dark they are almost violet. There is a shaft of sunlight through the trees where she stands, and something glints and sparkles around her neck. A necklace, with a pendant. I squint; she moves a little out of the sun. A pendant, something like a starburst—but not quite that. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, yet it reminds me of something at the same time.
“No,” she says, turns, and keeps walking.
Again I want to run after her, but I’m frozen. She is almost out of sight before I can finally move again and follow her to the road above. Just as I did that day, I bend down to find my phone in my backpack.
Really call the police this time, Shay. Do it!
The car comes.
It’s black, with four doors—a shiny Mercedes with tinted windows. I squint at the license plate, but from where I am, kneeling down by my backpack, it’s mostly blocked by green growing things on the side of the road. I can only see the tops of the letters and numbers. Not enough to work them out.
A man gets out of the car.
“There you are,” he says. “Come.” He is half turned away; I can’t see his face very well. Thinning hair, bald on top. Dark, not gray. His height is hard to judge from my position, but perhaps five foot ten or so.
She goes to him, gets into the car when he opens the door, into the back seat.
He turns to get into the driver’s seat, and he looks this way for a split second. I drink in the details. The barely controlled anger in wide-set, brown eyes; a small scar by his left eye, red and a bit puffy around his right eye, as if he’d recently been hit and would have a black eye tomorrow; a glint of gold at his neck.
There is someone else in the front seat—turned away—and I can’t see anything beyond the form through the tinted windows. Just an impression of height; of strength. Another man?
The car pulls away, and then is gone.
CHAPTER 11
CALLIE
SHETLAND INSTITUTE, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 22 hours
I FOLLOW THE SCIENTIST down one hall, then another. We reach a junction with double security doors. He swipes a pass to get them to open. I stay close; I don’t want to get trapped between two sets of doors until someone else comes by.
We reach another door, and he lines his eye up with a device alongside it and looks inside. The door slides open. I follow close behind; the door has slid shut behind us before I realize we’re in an elevator.
I hate elevators. I hate being confined anywhere, but elevators are the worst. I’m shaking, rolling myself up in the corner, but it isn’t just from being in this elevator. It is this whole place. All the long corridors, labs, everywhere I’ve been, there are no windows. Not anywhere. I want out! I long to see the sun, the sky, a few trees, or even a half-dead city garden with graffiti scrawled on the walls.
We’re in the elevator a long time. Are we going up, or down? I have no feeling of movement, and there are no floor numbers lit up over the elevator door to help.
Finally the door opens again. The scientist steps out, me still his shadow, into a weird tunnel of hanging plastic sheets. He steps through jets—first of water, then of some gas—and then through a section with weird, bluish lights. It’s kind of like he’s walking through an automatic car wash. Afterward he takes off his suit, helmet, the works, and puts it all through a hatch. Under everything he looks less like a space alien and more like a grumpy old man in creased trousers and shirt.
He smooths his hair with one hand and finally eyeballs a device by another door. It swings open, and we step into a large room.
We’re in an open space, at last—even if there are no windows—and my pani
c eases. There are people, and none of them are suited. They wear ordinary clothes; some wear quite fancy skirts and business suits, some wear white jackets over their clothes, and some are in work-type clothes with boots.
There are huge monitors all along a wall, and rows of desks with computers all facing the monitors. There is a hum of voices, excitement.
“Ah, there you are. I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it down in time for all the fun,” a woman in a white coat says to the scientist I followed.
“I was delayed,” he answers. “There was a temperature alarm in the vault. I haven’t missed it?”
“No. T minus two minutes to beam,” she says.
Gradually the voices in the room quiet down. A big digital clock over the monitors counts down sixty seconds. When it nears zero, the whole room is completely silent.
3…2…1…
And everyone seems to be holding their breath, staring at a screen in the center.
Then there is a faint beep; a brief glow of a bright light in the center of the screen.
Everybody cheers. They start talking excitedly, shaking hands. They seem to be congratulating each other. Snatches of conversation filter above: Another success…Always a thrill…We’ve done it again…
All for a blip on a screen?
There are a few worried faces to one side watching some other computer screens. A heated discussion breaks out, and I drift over to listen.
“See? We’re fine. No need for a shutdown. Specs for another five runs before—”
“Delay collision. Check sector 24.”
“It’s not necessary. The readings show that—”
“Just do it.”
Some of the people in work gear go through a door. Curious, I slip behind them.
They walk down another endless corridor, muttering and cursing to each other. Whatever they’ve been sent to do, they’re not happy about it. There are hatches in the floor. They walk on and on and then finally stop at one of them.
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