The Lost Girl

by Sangu Mandanna

  “Naturally,” comes Mina Ma’s voice, groggy with sleep. “Who would want to stay there any longer than necessary?”

  She must mean the Loom. She never uses that tone for anything else.

  “That’s not what I meant,” says Ophelia, sounding hurt. “I don’t mind being there, I . . .” She trails off, obviously realizing it’s useless. Ophelia has always defended the Loom. She has believed in it, in the Weavers, for as long as I can remember. I think she realizes she and Mina Ma will never see eye-to-eye on that subject.

  After a pause, Mina Ma says, more gently, “Was it very difficult?”

  There’s no reply, so I assume Ophelia has nodded, because Mina Ma says, “So it went badly, then? No,” she adds quickly, “you’re upset. Let’s go into the garden and talk.”

  “The kids asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  There’s a long pause. I open my door and peer out. I can see the corridor and the doorway to the next room, but no more than that. There don’t seem to be any shadows moving against the wall of the living room, so they must have gone out.

  A shape materializes at the foot of the stairs, inches from my bedroom door. I squeak and jerk back.

  “Don’t do that!” I hiss at Sean.

  He’s in the T-shirt and boxers he wears to bed, but he looks wide awake. I make myself stare at his face.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Ophelia’s here,” I whisper. I pull him quickly into my room and shut the door. “I guess she’s been in London. But she left quite suddenly, and she seems really upset. Do you know if anything was happening at the Loom last night?”

  “Weaving?” Sean asks drily.

  I frown at him. “Anything else?”

  “There may have been a trial,” he says. “I saw something about it in the weekly update we’re sent. An echo and her guardian. They must have broken a law.”

  “Well,” I say, “my room faces the back garden, so we could find out.”

  His disapproval is obvious, but he doesn’t stop me. I pad across to the window and open it a crack. I kneel down beside the sill. With a resigned look, Sean crouches across from me.

  We can hear them talking. Ophelia’s voice is quiet. Her hands must be shaking because I hear her lighter click several times before I smell the smoke of her cigarette.

  “She must have been twenty-three, twenty-four,” says Ophelia, between desperate drags, “and she was screaming. God, how she screamed. They weren’t hurting her, but she was scared. I had to sit there with her.” She pauses. “Her and two of the Guard. You know what they’re like. They don’t speak unless they have to. They just stand there, watching. Always watching.”

  Who are the Guard? I mouth the words at Sean. This is the first I’ve heard of them.

  He hesitates, then says very softly, “They’re echoes. If an echo goes wrong and can’t be used as a replacement, the Weavers keep them. Raise them. They become the Guard. They protect the Loom and the Weavers. They’re completely devoted.”

  I hadn’t even known echoes could go wrong. I look down at my own fingers. I’m not broken.

  “Do regular people know about them?”

  “I think they’ve heard rumors.”

  That doesn’t surprise me. So little of the Loom is fact, is understood. Until recently there were no facts at all. The Loom first started stitching life two hundred years ago, or something like it, anyway, and back then it was a secret, smoke and stories to frighten naughty children, a mysterious thing no one was ever quite sure about. And over time it’s become more and more a part of the ordinary world. Now people know it exists. They know about us. And many of those people hate it. Unnatural. That’s the word they use. I wonder how they’d feel knowing it’s possible for an echo to go wrong.

  “Are they treated badly?” I ask Sean. “The Guard?”

  “No, they’re treated kindly enough. But even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t betray the Loom. It’s the only life they’ve known. They do anything, everything, the Weavers ask them to. A few of the Guard double as seekers, too.”

  There is a sudden sound outside. I stifle a gasp.

  Sean stops speaking. I hold my breath, but no one comes to the window to confront us. I don’t relax until I hear their voices again.

  “And the girl?” That’s Mina Ma.

  “The moment they came to take her to her trial, she broke down. She wouldn’t stop screaming, begging them to give her another chance—”

  There’s a silence out in the garden. I lean my head against the sill, a sour taste in my mouth, and watch Sean’s face. Something solid to hold on to.

  “How did they vote?”

  “Oh,” says Ophelia. I can tell she doesn’t like the question. “Well, naturally they felt that they couldn’t trust her, and I—I mean, of course they had a long think about it, but I . . . well . . .” I hear the sound of her blowing smoke in a short, ragged burst. “Elsa wavered. She might have voted to save that poor girl. But Adrian and Matthew voted first, and they both voted to get rid of her, so Elsa gave in.”

  “What will happen to the guardian who broke the law with her? Prison?”

  “I don’t know,” says Ophelia. “But he did break the law. . . .”

  Mina Ma lets out a long, sad breath. “I keep hoping, with every trial, that it will change. That they will show mercy to somebody.”

  “It’s not about mercy,” says Ophelia. “They can’t make threats and not follow through. They can’t make laws and forgive if the laws are broken.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” says Mina Ma, rather coldly. “Is that what Adrian says?”

  “That’s not fair!” Ophelia protests. “They’re doing what they believe is right. Adrian is doing what he believes is right.”

  There’s a long, tense silence.

  “Come”—Mina Ma’s voice is softer now—“never mind that. You need rest, you haven’t slept, and you’ve driven a long way. Go upstairs, use my room. I will stay with Eva for the rest of the night.”

  “Eva?” Ophelia demands in surprise.

  “She’s named herself. She says she’s tired of feeling ashamed of not being like normal people. She wants something of her own.”

  “Good for her.”

  Mina Ma’s voice is stern. “You’ll forget to mention that to the Weavers, won’t you?”

  The first trace of a smile creeps into Ophelia’s voice, and I feel a rush of love for her as she says, “Mention what?”

  I reach to close the window. Cold creeps up my spine like icy fingertips. The Weavers never show mercy. I lean back against the wall, my leg pressed against Sean’s for warmth, and neither of us moves or says a word for a long time.

  6

  Tattoo

  There’s a dream I have sometimes. It’s always the same. I dream of a Weaver who made me because he loved me. I hear a dark, rough voice singing me lullabies in a room painted pale green. He talks to me. He holds me and throws me in the air and laughs. I can’t make the dream go away, but I know it’s false. Silly. I know not to fall into the trap of believing any kind of love ever existed.

  The Weavers must never know about my name or the zoo. They must never know about how it felt when Sean touched my wrist. Or how we sat together in the dark and listened to Ophelia talk about broken laws and dying girls.

  And while I keep my secrets, I must go on with Amarra’s life, and Amarra’s life now includes a tattoo.

  The Weavers wanted to send one of their own people to do the job, but Erik suggested I go to a place in town instead.

  “It’s not much, a day out,” he said to me over the phone. “But you’ll enjoy it more than staying in the house. Mina will pretend to be your mother; they need to have a parent’s permission if you’re underage. Take the photo with you.”

  So on Monday morning, instead of lessons with Erik, I go to the tattoo artist’s studio. Mina Ma and Ophelia come with me. The former is tight-lipped with disapproval, but the latter chatters to keep my
spirits up. In spite of the fact that I have lived here all my life, Ophelia still feels compelled to point things out to me: the cemetery, a pub, the Beatrix Potter museum. She means well, so I pretend the pub is a novelty.

  The artist’s studio is down one of the alleys, and when we walk in, I am surprised it doesn’t fit the seedy image I had built up in my head. It’s a pleasant set of rooms with pictures of tattoos on the walls. There’s an ominous sound coming from the next room, a drill whirring merrily away. I grimace, my stomach feeling heavier by the minute.

  “You must be Amarra.”

  I turn at the sound of the light male voice. The artist is short and chubby, his pale face a study in self-alteration. I try to count his piercings, but there are too many in his eyebrows alone.

  “Eva,” I say before I can stop myself.

  He glances questioningly at Mina Ma and Ophelia. “That’s her name,” says Mina Ma, in a tone no one would dare challenge.

  “Okay,” says the artist pleasantly. “I’m Tim. Your uncle called and made an appointment for you. Are you under the age of eighteen?” I nod. “Then you’ll need one of your parents’ permission.”

  “I’m her mother,” says Mina Ma.

  “Great! Then if you’ll all come with me, we can get started.” He leads us into a private room and shuts the door. “First time?”

  “Second,” I say.

  It’s not really a lie. I don’t remember getting the Mark, which is odd because I remember just about everything, but I know it’s there, burned forever into me, that lightning bolt with the curl like a small letter e. Mina Ma says the same mark is on the gates of the Loom, too. It’s the Weavers’ crest.

  Tim sits me down on a stool and gets me to hold my wrist out to him. He swabs the skin with something that smells strong and medicinal, and then rubs Vaseline gently over the spot the needle will touch.

  “You’re nervous,” he says, probably feeling my galloping pulse. “Don’t worry. If it hurts too much, we’ll stop right away.”

  We can’t, not really, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know I have to do this.

  Tim turns on the needle and it starts to buzz. It’s the sound that so unsettled me before. I see Mina Ma shudder, but her face stays calm. Ophelia utters a squeak, and Mina Ma elbows her. I eye the needle, gulping. It’s enormous. It makes me think the slightest touch will tear straight into the fragile skin.

  But I must be tougher than I thought. When he traces the ink into my skin, it’s a shock because it hurts less than I expected it to. This is no worse than having somebody press hard into my skin with a pencil.

  “Not so bad, is it?” says Tim, smiling.

  The needle does draw blood, but Tim deftly swabs it away with a wet cotton ball. I watch him lose himself in copying the photograph of Amarra’s tattoo. He’s an artist and he works like one, brow fierce with concentration, hands perfectly steady.

  I focus on my companions’ faces, lingering on Mina Ma’s eyes, the set of her lips and chin. It is strange how much stronger and safer I feel when I see her so strong, so firm.

  In ten minutes, it’s over. The tattoo is small, I hear, only about an inch long. I haven’t looked at it. I flung the picture as far away from me as I could when reading the journal pages.

  Tim wipes away the last of the blood and stray ink, and tells me how to help the tattoo heal faster. “Diaper cream will keep it from getting too sore or dry,” he explains. “Make sure you reapply it regularly. Some people find their tattoos scab over and get itchy, but you can avoid that by keeping it moist.”

  I keep him talking, asking questions about looking after the tattoo, putting off having to see it. But eventually I have to look down.

  I suck in a sharp breath. Erik was right. The tattoo is strangely beautiful. But it’s also a tattoo of a snake.

  The snake is delicate. Its head is turned up, looking at the sky in longing, as though it wants to fly. But all I can think of is a snake that came to bite a baby and a mongoose that slew it. A mongoose that died because of it. And now we, I, bear the snake.

  After we’ve paid Tim, they take me to lunch at a nearby pub. I set my wrist carefully down on the table and try to eat a steak one-handed.

  Ophelia drives home when we’ve finished lunch, and Mina Ma and I go back into the cottage. I wonder what I’m going to do with the rest of my day. Without the usual lessons, I have the afternoon free. After making sure Mina Ma is safely in the next room, I unearth the box beneath my bed. It’s full of things I have collected over time: scrap paper, old newspapers, bits of cloth, unused candles, broken clocks, feathers, pebbles from the lake.

  I melt one of the candles in a bowl and, while it’s still warm and soft, start to mold shapes out of the wax. Mina Ma likes to joke about my restless hands, but this is one time my hands stay quite steady, focused. My mind goes quiet when I draw or make things. I’m not supposed to, of course. My other would rather spend her time learning about old things or out with her friends or helping Neil, her father, with his work. This is my one great secret, one I keep from everyone except Sean. It is another thing the Weavers could destroy me for. I don’t think my guardians would tell them, but I don’t want to force them to make that choice, either.

  It’s interesting that my other’s mother, my familiar Alisha, is an artist. She paints and sculpts for a living. Maybe that passion skipped Amarra and I got it instead.

  I am just finishing up my wax bird, a crane, when I hear the unmistakable sound of Mina Ma coming to check on me. I leap to my feet and meet her in the next room first.

  “What have you been so busy with?” she asks.

  “I . . . er . . . I was making something for Sean.” Not strictly a lie. Sean sends me blank postcards, and I give him the bits and pieces I make. Birds and elephants and other things. “As a kind of thank-you for the zoo.”

  “That’s nice,” says Mina Ma. “Maybe it will cheer him up.”

  I give her a sharp look. “Why does he need cheering up?”

  “Did he not tell you?” Mina Ma raises her eyebrows at me. “Well, I don’t think it’s a secret.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “That girl he’s been—what do you call it—going out with,” says Mina Ma. “They’re not going out anymore.”

  I blink. “What? Why not?”

  Mina Ma shrugs. “I don’t pry, child. I only asked him how his girlfriend was, and he said they’d broken up. Something about her not liking that he missed her birthday.”

  “He told you this yesterday?”

  “Not long before he left, yes.”

  “It’s my fault!” I tell her, dismayed. “He’s unhappy and it’s because of me. If it wasn’t for that stupid tattoo and me being so upset about it, he wouldn’t have come this weekend.”

  Mina Ma rolls her eyes. “Don’t be silly, he chose to come—”

  “He wouldn’t have if I hadn’t made such a fuss,” I say. I feel awful. “Can’t we go see him? We could take him a pint of milk and the cra—the thing I made. It might cheer him up.”

  “Eva,” says Mina Ma, sighing, “don’t be ridiculous. We can’t turn up out of the blue on the poor boy’s doorstep. Just because I let you go to the zoo one time doesn’t mean everything has changed. Why don’t you call him or wait for the next time he’s here?”

  “That’s not good enough! You can’t give someone milk over the phone, and seeing as I’ve gone and ruined his life, I want to do something to fix it—”

  “Ruined his life!” she says with a snort. “Ay Shiva, everything isn’t life or death just because you’re a teenager.”

  I scowl.

  “There are only so many risks we can take,” Mina Ma says firmly. “Is that understood?”

  I hesitate before giving her my sulkiest look. “It’s not fair,” I tell her, in the most annoying whine I can muster.

  She shakes her head. Then, satisfied that I’ve given in and am in a right sulk because of it, she stands and goes upstairs for her afternoon nap.
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  The moment I hear the telltale creak of her bed as she turns over in her sleep, I spring up and run to the fridge. I retrieve a pint of milk and shove it into my bag. I put the crane in as well and hurry into my room. I pull on my boots over my socks and leggings, swap my holey dress for one in slightly better condition, and search my desk drawer for the spare change and notes I’ve collected over the years. I have £21.45, which, having watched Sean buy our tickets on Saturday, I know is more than I will need for the train to Lancaster. I put the money in my bag and snatch up the phone Erik gave me for emergencies. I write a note to Mina Ma, apologizing (underlined several times) and promising her I’ll send her a text as soon as I reach Sean’s safely.

  I have to do something. Lucy could have been the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. I bite my lip. That thought chafes at me and I don’t know why. But I do know it’s not fair that he could have lost her because of me.

  I hesitate at the door, thinking of the consequences if the Weavers ever find out. Of Mina Ma’s anxiety when she wakes up to find me gone. Of going to Lancaster on my own, when I’ve never taken a step farther than the lakeshore alone before.

  I close my eyes, then walk out.

  The afternoon sunlight flashes across the water as I walk up the familiar road, leaving behind the cottage. The leaves on many of the trees have turned red and orange already, and tour boats bob on the main lake, flanked by sloping green hills. I pass the old church and the cemetery.

  The road up to the train station feels very long. It winds gently around many bends and rows of tall, dark trees that whisper to one another in the fading sun. A bird swoops over my head, cawing, and it sounds like it’s saying “Eva’s gone, Eva’s gone!”

  I pass a lamppost and remember the man leaning against it with his old map. What if there’s someone else out here watching me? What if he really was a hunter?

  I get to the station and buy my ticket. As the lady behind the counter punches in my request, I touch the back of my neck, smoothing wayward wisps of my hair, making sure my Mark is well and truly hidden. The lady gives me my ticket with a smile and I smile back, enjoying the freedom of being a girl, no more or less. The train is waiting and I climb aboard. When we jolt ahead, I know it’s too late to go back, and I sink deeper into my seat, my nerves rattling on edge.