CALLIE
“KAI, WHERE’S MY MUM?” Shay’s eyes are on Kai’s, and he stares back at her, and the conflict is there. He needs to tell her but is afraid to, afraid she is so fragile she’ll shatter like a flower caught in frost. Her skin is pale, almost translucent, her face thinner than it was, all making the pale blue of her eyes seem to take over.
“Shay, I don’t know how to tell you.” He shrugs helplessly.
“It’s true—she’s died, hasn’t she?” she whispers. Her eyes shimmer and blur, with tears and more. “I hoped it was just a dream, the worst dream I’ve ever had. But it wasn’t.”
He shakes his head.
She blinks, and the tears spill down her cheeks. “She caught it from me, and she died. Where could I have gotten it?”
“I don’t know,” Kai says. “It isn’t in Killin or this area; it’s all still clear. It might have been when we went to Edinburgh—there’s been an outbreak there.” As the realization hits Kai fully, he’s horrified. “I’m so sorry. You were only there because of me.”
“Don’t. We don’t know where it came from,” Shay says. “But tell me what I’ve missed. Don’t sugarcoat it; tell me.”
And Kai, haltingly, tells her about Newcastle and the other places. He doesn’t go into the horrible details, just gives the facts, like a reporter would—about Newcastle, the army base. The city.
Shay’s eyes seem to grow even bigger as she takes in what he’s said. “So, this kills ninety-five percent of people. Five percent, like you, are immune. There are a few unconfirmed survivors, like Fred. But he hanged himself.”
“And there’s you.”
“Maybe I’m still dying. Maybe I’m just slow about it.”
“No. They die much faster. I’ve seen it; I know. I should call my mother, tell her about you—that you are a survivor. And that I’m all right. But my phone died.”
Shay wriggles around, finds her phone under the pillow, and hands it to Kai. He dials.
“Mum? Yes, it’s me. I’m fine. I found Shay, and that’s not all—”
“Hello, hello?” He shakes his head and looks at the phone. “The battery is dead.”
“At least now she knows you’re all right. How did you find me out here?”
“I remembered you called me from your friend Iona’s phone. I rang her to see if she knew where you were. She didn’t, but she had this lost phone app on hers for your phone; she gave me directions all the way.”
“It led you to me here, in the woods?”
“Well, not exactly to here. It landed me in the middle of the woods, and then my phone died. I was convinced she’d gotten it wrong. I just started calling your name.”
“I heard you. I thought it was a dream.”
“But you called back.”
“Yes.” Shay’s eyes are searching the shelter, looking for me. I’ve been lying on the floor, but now I sit up. I helped you, I say. But she doesn’t answer, and her eyes slide away from mine.
Shay, I’m Callie, Kai’s sister. Her eyes snap back to mine, wondering, then she shakes her head slightly, side to side.
Please, Shay! Tell Kai that I’m here! I yell it this time, and she jumps.
“Shay? One more thing. There’s something we need to do.” Kai snugs his arm around her. He hesitates, as if there is something else he must say, but he isn’t sure how to say it.
“Where is my Mum now?” Shay says in a small voice. She radiates so much pain that I flinch away from her. “Where is her body?”
CHAPTER 33
SHAY
KAI MAKES A PYRE IN THE FOREST, then gathers wildflowers when I ask him to. I know this is how Mum would have wanted it.
My legs are weak; he has to help hold me up as I dress her in spring: yellow, pink, and white tiny blossoms. I wind bluebells, her favorites, in her hair.
I hold her hands in mine and say goodbye. Hers are stiff and cold now, but they are still hers. The hands and arms and heart and soul that always loved me, no matter what.
I close my eyes and reach out to her—like I’m pouring part of myself into her. I don’t know what I’m doing, or how, but her last thoughts are waves I can catch, imprinted from her to me. They’re not full of fear for herself; they’re all of me. I let Kai pull me away, and I’m washed in her love as her body is in flames.
Callie, as she calls herself, stays away, at the edges, silent. I think she is crying too.
CHAPTER 34
CALLIE
NOW THAT I’M CERTAIN SHAY WILL LIVE, I’m back to not being sure I want her around. She can hear and see me, I know she can—in so many little ways she reacts when I speak to her.
But she refuses to answer. She pretends I’m not here.
I finally found someone who can hear me, and she does her best to ignore me. It’s making me crazy!
And unlike everyone else I’ve come across since I was cured, she isn’t a blank. With other people, like Kai, I have to guess what they are thinking or feeling from their faces, what they say. With Shay, her emotions pour out of her: melted sugar when Kai kisses her; pain like burning acid when she thinks of her mother dying. So much so that when her Mum was placed on the pyre Kai made, it felt like it was my Mum—her pain tore into me so intensely, I could hardly stand it.
And she can read me too. She reacts to things I say, both out loud and in my mind.
She must be like I was, when I survived the illness. Before they cured me with fire. Different; changed.
I have to make her see what has happened to her. Maybe then she’ll understand that she can talk to me.
CHAPTER 35
SHAY
YOU HAVE CHANGED, Callie says. Your eyes have changed.
I ignore her, or I try to. It’s hard when she is there as clear as the trees straining for light beside me, the pulsing earth under my feet.
Go to the loch. Go and see your reflection, she says.
I resist for a while. She doesn’t exist, unless I’m completely crazy. If I don’t answer her, she’ll disappear like the figment of my imagination that she is. A hallucination left behind from the fever—probably because of that dream I had, of Mum saying Calista is my half sister. Another load of crazy imaginings from my fevered brain.
I ask Kai, “Do I look different since I’ve been ill?”
He strokes my cheek lightly with his fingertips, and I shiver, almost vibrate, with the touch of his warm skin on mine. “Let’s see. You’re a little thinner. Try to eat more.”
“You need to be a better chef. What about my eyes?”
He looks into them carefully. A sense of confused wonder crosses his face and mind, then is gone. “Beautiful blue, as always,” he says, and kisses me, carefully, gently, like I could shatter with too much pressure. Or too much pleasure.
I’m unsteady on my feet. I can only stand on my own for a moment. But I tell Kai I need to wash—I do, for sure—and that I want to be alone. He helps me to the loch’s edge and finally goes when I insist.
My legs are shaking. I sit by the surface of the water. The trees both stand by the water and are laid out in it, perfect replicas of vibrant wood and chlorophyll green. Leaves move in a slight breeze on the shore, or in the whisper of a wave on the water. Which are more real?
Kai’s worrying continues beyond in the trees.
I’m fine, I reassure him with my thoughts, and send him away.
You’re different, Callie says, and I jump. She’s in front of me. When could you speak to people inside their heads before without them even knowing?
I frown, not answering. Is that what I did?
Look, she says, insistent. Look at your eyes.
I lean over the water.
Like the trees, there are two of me—one leaning over from the land, and a water girl.
What a sight. My hair is the worst mess in history. At least with being curly it doesn’t sit lank on my head like it otherwise would.
But my skin is clear. Cheeks nicely rosy, as if I’d never been ill.
&
nbsp; And…? Callie says.
My eyes? I look, and look again. They’re perfectly normal. My sight drifts, from water girl to what lies beneath her, the sounds and movements of fish in the loch, insects on its surface, those on the tree behind me, ducks quacking and swimming by the far shore, and then—
Not normal, not at all. When I was listening and reaching and feeling the life all around me, it’s almost like a cloud passed through my eyes. Swirling weirdness, like the weirdness in my head, and then I couldn’t see what was before me anymore—just what I reached to, beyond.
I shake my head. What madness. I take off my clothes and brace myself for the cold water. Splash it on myself, and wash as best I can while sitting on a rock just under the surface. I dip my head under cold water, wash my hair, chilled to the bone.
I stand, carefully, and just manage to walk out of the water. I dry myself with the towel I brought, wrap myself up in it and lean on a tree. What little energy I had is gone. The sun is warm today and my skin is greedy for it, but inside I’m still so cold.
You’re different, Callie says again. That’s why you can hear me!
I frown with the effort of ignoring her.
I’m shivering, but thinking about being cold isn’t going to help. Instead I imagine waves of heat reaching out to me from the sun, my skin getting warmer and warmer, and waves reaching from inside me too…
A warm flush spreads from inside to my skin.
I’m so shocked, I let go of the tree and stand straighter. I try to take a step without holding the tree, but my legs are still weak and I almost fall.
“Shay? Are you okay?” Kai’s voice calls out to me from above.
“Fine, but I’m naked,” I answer.
“Don’t tempt me. I’ll keep my eyes shut; let me know when you’re dressed, and I’ll help you back up.”
I so wish I could just go to him. I imagine strength flowing through my body, into my arms and legs…I imagine walking normally.
I step forward, and my legs are steady, my steps even and natural. Even though I’m not cold anymore, goose bumps rise on my arms.
See how different you are? Callie says. When could you think yourself well before?
I turn to her, almost answer, then shake my head. Maybe it was just time for me to start feeling better. It’s crazy to think I made it happen.
I get dressed, then walk silently to where Kai stands, his eyes shut, as he promised. I slip my hands around his waist. He turns, kisses me, and I kiss him back properly for the first time. Rising on my toes to reach him better, my hand on his neck, in his hair, pulling him closer.
He forgets I’m fragile, that he must be gentle. He kisses me again and again.
CHAPTER 36
CALLIE
KAI IS CHECKING THEIR FOOD AND WATER SUPPLIES—all stuff that Shay says her Mum brought when they came here in the middle of the night.
“We’ve only got enough stuff for another day or so,” he says.
“I want to stay here.”
“Forever?”
“Yes, forever. Just the two of us.”
Bleugh. More melted sugar pours out of Shay as Kai kisses her.
You’re not alone, remember? I’m still here! I picture pulling Shay’s hair in my mind, and she flinches away from Kai.
“We can’t live on kisses,” he says.
“We could catch fish! And find berries. I know the ones we can eat, how to find edible plants. Like nettles. You can make soup out of nettles. And there are wild oats and all sorts of things we can eat.”
“Sounds tasty. How do you know that stuff?”
A shadow crosses her face. “Mum was really into camping, and living off the land. I used to like it when I was little; not so much lately.” She’s sad, thinking of times she insisted no more camping, that she didn’t want to go anywhere there wasn’t any Wi-Fi.
Kai hugs her, strokes her hair.
“Well, you might be a genius at all that, but I’m craving pizza. Can you rustle up one of them out here?”
She looks around at the trees for inspiration. “Probably not.”
“So?”
“One more day. Let’s have one more day alone. Please?”
“All right. Tomorrow, then.”
CHAPTER 37
SHAY
I KNOW WE CAN’T REALLY HIDE OUT here forever. I know we’re running out of supplies; that with both our phone batteries dead, people, like Iona, must be mad with worry with no word from us.
But I want to stay alone in the woods with Kai.
We have this one last night. Alone, if only Callie would go away.
When he kisses me, in that perfect moment, all the pain of losing Mum, and all the fear of returning to the real world, is held away. When he stops, it rushes back so fast it is like a sledgehammer to my gut. And what will happen when we get back to Killin? I don’t want to think about that either.
I don’t want to think or feel pain: I only want Kai.
But that night, when I hold him and kiss him, and kiss him again, when I want to be close and then closer, he hesitates. He says he wants me, but it isn’t the right time. That I need to get stronger, to recover, and be whole again.
The pain rushes back, and he holds me while I cry.
* * *
Our last morning. We debate whether we should take the boat and go across the loch to my house, or take Kai’s bike. In the end, the bike wins. He says we’ll come back for the boat when I’m stronger, when I can row and he can ride and we can meet across. For now we’re walking through the woods to the forest road to his bike.
I’m scared. There is the gaping loss of Mum, and I don’t want to go back to town without her. What will happen to us? And what will they think of us burning her body in the woods like that? I know Kai said that is what had to be done, that she had the Aberdeen flu and this will prevent spread of the disease—but didn’t we break about a hundred laws doing it on our own? And I’m underage. Will they take me away from Kai, make me live in some awful foster home or something?
We find his bike. We get on and head for Killin.
The closer we get, the more I know: the things I was worrying about should have been the last to make the list.
PART 3
THE BITE
Seek knowledge, but be wary of facts. They are always subject to the vagaries of human observation.
—Xander, Multiverse Manifesto
CHAPTER 1
CALLIE
I DON’T LIKE BEING ON KAI’S MOTORCYCLE when Shay is on it too. She’s wearing my helmet; she’s behind him, her hands reaching around him to hold on. I go to the front instead and sit on the handlebars.
At first we bump along slowly on a rough track, back the way Kai and I had come when we were rushing to find Shay. Kai tells Shay this must be a logging road, that this is the way that Shay’s friend—Iona—had directed him to find her. Not that he would have managed it without my help. When Kai says “Iona,” there is eagerness and longing in Shay. She cares for Iona, wants to see her; feelings she doesn’t have for me. It hurts that the only person who can see and hear me wishes I would go away.
We leave the track for a lane that is more like a road, and now go a little faster through the trees. We climb higher and then can see the loch, stretching out below us.
We go around a bend; Kai curses under his breath and slows down. Up ahead, something moves in the road—there are two guards and a roadblock.
“It’s the army,” Kai says.
Shay gasps when she sees what they’re wearing: they’re covered head to toe in suits—biohazard suits. She hasn’t seen them before? Her hands grip tighter to Kai.
Kai stops, and they get off the bike. Kai takes off his helmet and nudges Shay to do the same. She clings to his hand. One of the guards walks over to us.
“You don’t want to go this way, son. The village is under quarantine.”
“How…how bad is it?” Shay asks.
“Very bad. It’s swept through the whole v
illage.” Shay’s face pales. “Sorry,” he says. “And if you want to go back the way you came, you’ll have to hurry, or you’ll be trapped. The quarantine loop is being extended.”
“Let’s turn around,” Kai says to Shay. “Come to Newcastle with me.”
Yes! Let’s go to Newcastle!
But Shay shakes her head. “I can’t. This is my home; I have to see what is happening.”
Kai argues with her—as do I—but she shakes her head at him and ignores me.
She’s stubborn but scared. She’s afraid if she insists, Kai will leave her here, alone; that she won’t see him again. But he can’t hear what I want, and anyway he’d never do that.
“I have to see for myself,” Shay says again.
“It’s a death sentence,” the guard says.
Shay winces, shakes her head. “Not for us. We’re immune.”
“Have you got passes?”
Shay shakes her head no; Kai gets out his immune pass. The guard takes it, reads it, and notes Kai’s name down, then hands it back and turns to Shay.
“I haven’t got the paperwork, but I’m immune too.” She puts slight stress on the word immune, and Kai’s eyebrow goes up. Why doesn’t she tell him she’s a survivor?
“What’s your name, and where are you from?”
“Shay McAllister. I live nearby, on the other side of Killin. Across the loch.”
“That’s within the quarantine zone.” He notes down her name. “Your say-so that you’re immune will get you in, but it won’t get you out. You’ll have to apply for a pass if you want to leave.”
He opens the barricade, and Kai pushes his bike through. Shay hesitates behind him.
Don’t do it! What if you get in, but you can’t get out again? You’ll be stuck with people who are sick and dying, until everyone is dead. Like me.
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