All she had to do was point.
But she knew, at once, that she wasn’t going to do it. If she used Bando like that, she would have to spend the rest of her life clinging to her own version of the story, to justify what she’d done. And maybe she didn’t understand it all yet. Maybe there was more to discover.
The white fluff burned brightly, but very fast. For a few seconds, she let everyone stare at it, while she watched her father’s face. It looked the same as it had all her life. Cold and stiff. Almost expressionless. But now she sensed that he was afraid. Perhaps he’d always been afraid.
Before the others had recovered from their shock, the flames died down, leaving only a few sparks chasing each other through the ashes. Lorn slipped off the shoulder of the image and began climbing down toward the tunnel floor.
She was only halfway down when the rumbling started.
In the cavern, they heard noises like that all the time. They were made by the huge figures that walked through the woods, shaking the earth and talking together like thunder. The sound was part of the ordinary fabric of their lives and they’d all learned how to ignore it.
But this time it was much closer than usual—low over the tunnel entrance—and it had an odd, repetitive beat. Lorn could feel the vibrations all through her body. She slid the rest of the way to the ground and caught at Zak’s hand.
“What is it?” she whispered. “What’s happening?”
“Hope?” said her father’s voice. “Are you there?”
She sensed his hands fumbling toward her and she sidestepped instinctively to avoid him. “Zak! What is it?” she asked again.
Zak didn’t answer. She could feel him listening as the rumbling stopped for a moment and then began again, more insistently. It was starting to unsettle the others now.
“Let’s get back to the cavern,” muttered Dess. “Everything’s weird down here.”
“Don’t be such a coward.” That was Cam, speaking briskly to keep them all calm. “That noise hasn’t got anything to do with us. Has it, Zak?”
Zak ignored that question, too. “Lorn,” he murmured. “Can you find a faster route than the way you brought us?”
Lorn smiled to herself in the darkness. She’d made sure that the journey there was as long as possible, to give their torches time to burn out. Trust Zak to realize that. The straight way home would only take a few minutes.
The flames had gone completely now, and people were beginning to blunder around in the dark. Raising her voice, she said, “Hold hands in a line and I’ll take you back.”
She took Bando’s hand very quickly—to avoid her father’s—and waited while the others shuffled into place. Cam made them call out their names, all the way down the line, to check that no one was left behind. Then Lorn started forward, leading the way.
And all the time they could hear the strange, staccato rumbling.
It was very close and with every step it seemed to get closer. By the time they reached the wall, it was almost directly over their heads. Lorn led Bando right up to the opening in the secret passage and then slid her hand away.
“Here you are,” she said. “All you have to do now is crawl through to the storeroom.”
“Aren’t you going first?” said Bando.
Lorn shook her head at him, even though he couldn’t see. “You’ve forgotten,” she said gently. “I’m not allowed to come. I have to stay down here.”
They’d all forgotten. She felt the shock go down the line as they remembered.
“You mustn’t stay.” Bando caught hold of her hand again. “Come on, Lorn. I’m not letting anyone through before you.”
“Stop it, Bando,” Cam said unhappily. “You know we have to keep the rules. If Lorn comes through—”
“Lorn must come through,” said Zak, interrupting her. His voice was loud and forceful. “Don’t worry—the rules will all be kept in the end. But she has to come up to the cavern.”
He hardly ever spoke like that, but when he did, no one argued. Bando stepped aside and Lorn went down on her knees and crawled into the passage, lying on her stomach and dragging herself along with her elbows.
She was expecting Bando to follow her, but somehow her father managed to slip in before him. As she scrambled out into the storeroom, she could hear him scrabbling behind her, dragging at the stones as he squeezed through the narrowest part of the passage.
The rumbling voices sounded much louder once she was through the wall. It was impossible to understand them—impossible to make out any words at all—but she couldn’t stop listening. The noise nagged at her mind and she knew there was something about the rhythm that she ought to understand. Some kind of pattern. But she couldn’t work out what it was.
Her father heaved himself out of the tunnel and began to feel around for her. “Hope?” he muttered. “Are you there?”
Silently, she sidled away, toward the foot of the ramp. She could hear Bando blundering through the passage now, but she didn’t wait for him. She walked straight up the ramp, as fast as she could. As she came out into the space behind the brazier, she heard her father stumbling between the heaps of grain in the storeroom.
It was as she stepped into the main cavern that the pattern of the rumbling suddenly changed. Until then, it had been a steady, simple rhythm, worked out in single beats. Now, suddenly, there was another strand. A pattering, intricate, polysyllabic thread that wove its way in and out of the others.
The noise drummed in her ears, shaking every cell of her body. It was more than a sound. It belonged to her, in some way that she couldn’t quite grasp. Why not? Why couldn’t she remember? She began to walk down the cavern, toward the entrance tunnel.
By the time the others arrived, she was crouching by the entrance, reaching in to pull out the clump of branches that blocked it. Annet ran toward her and caught at her arm.
“What are you doing?” she scolded. “Come away from there! It would be crazy to go outside now.”
“That’s for Lorn to decide,” said Zak. He was still at the other end of the cavern, but his voice carried clearly. “What can you hear, Lorn? What are the voices saying?”
Lorn stood up, knowing and not knowing. “They—want me,” she said slowly. “They want me to go out there. To go back.”
Her father moved suddenly, appearing around the brazier. “You mustn’t go!” he shouted. “You’ll freeze to death out there!”
He started toward her as though he meant to grab her and pull her away from the entrance by force. But he was only halfway when Zak bellowed after him.
“Stay where you are! Don’t meddle with things you don’t understand!”
Lorn saw her father pause for a second, turning around to bellow back. “I can’t let her go! She’s my daughter!”
As soon as the words were spoken, he realized what he’d said. There was a long, horrified gasp from Annet, and another from Perdew. Lorn could see the revulsion on their faces as they looked at her father.
And she saw his face, too, as she’d never seen it before. He looked hesitant and uncertain, as though his own words had shaken him.
“She’s not yours,” Zak said. Almost gently. “She’s bound to us. She chose this life in the cavern in preference to everything else.”
He began walking toward Lorn down the length of the cavern. She felt as though his eyes were seeing right into her head, as though he could hear what she was thinking. But suppose I don’t want to stay after all? Suppose I’ve changed my mind? She turned her face away, to stop him picking up the other voice that sounded even deeper in her mind. The voice that said, Robert . . .
But Zak wouldn’t leave her even that much privacy. He caught her chin in his hand and made her turn toward him. “You chose this place,” he said. And his blue eyes were relentless now. “You chose the cavern—and all of us—and that makes you special. We can’t let you go—unless you give us something in exchange.”
“But I haven’t got anything,” Lorn said. “You know I’v
e never had anything, outside this cavern.”
She heard her father catch his breath, as though he’d been hit, but she had no time to work out what that meant. Pulling away from Zak’s hand, she stepped nearer to the entrance.
“Don’t even think of going,” Zak said implacably. “Not like that. You’d just be going back to the misery you left before. To the underground prison and the poor stunted Hope who couldn’t walk or talk. Is that what you want?”
“But they’re calling me—”
“So what are you going to give us?”
Zak didn’t move his eyes from her face—but Lorn had a curious sense that he wasn’t looking at her anymore. She could feel him listening for a sound from somewhere else in the cavern. But when she glanced over his shoulder, everything was very still, except the flickering light from the brazier.
“I haven’t got anything,” she said desperately. “But I must go. Please—”
There was no softening of Zak’s expression. She could see that he wasn’t going to change his mind and allow her to leave. A wave of despair surged up in her mind, so black and vast that it almost blotted out everything else. They’ll never let me go—
And then it happened. The last thing she was expecting. Her father came walking down the cavern toward her, brushing past Zak as though he hadn’t seen him.
“You do have something,” he muttered. “You have me.”
“What?” Lorn couldn’t take in the words. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll stay here in your place. If they’ll have me.” He looked over his shoulder at Zak. “Is that a fair exchange?”
For a second, Zak watched him, not answering. Then he said, “Is that your choice? Made of your own free will?”
Lorn wanted to hear her father say yes. Wanted it so much that she could hardly breathe. But she knew it wouldn’t be right. She made herself speak, forcing the words out quickly, while she still had the courage.
“He can’t make that choice. He has no idea what it would mean. He doesn’t even know where we are—or what he is.”
“Perhaps that doesn’t matter to him,” Zak said softly. “Maybe he wants to stay in your place whatever that means. It all depends on his reason. Why don’t you ask him?”
Lorn lifted her head and made herself look full into her father’s face. He looked awkward and uncertain, and the idea of asking the question filled her with revulsion. She didn’t want to know what he felt. Didn’t want to be that close.
But Zak wasn’t going to let her escape. “Tell her, Daniel,” he said. “Tell her why you want to stay in her place.”
Lorn saw her father’s eyes slide away, as though Zak had embarrassed him. “She saved my life,” he said stiffly. “Without her, I would have died down in those tunnels. I owe her something in return.”
It wasn’t enough. Lorn didn’t know what she wanted, but it wasn’t that. Zak clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“I owe you something won’t do,” he said. “Lorn needs the truth. Your real reason.”
“She’s my daughter. I have a duty to protect her—”
This time the words were defensive and hasty. And they didn’t please Zak any more than the first answer. He shook his head sternly.
“Duty has no place in this. Anything we take in Lorn’s place must be freely given. If you’re not doing that, then the exchange fails.”
Lorn felt her father waver, holding back from giving a third answer. She could still hear the voices rumbling overhead, calling out to her, but she was suddenly afraid that they were tiring and fading away. It was that fear that pushed her into speech at last.
“Please,” she said. “If you have a reason, please tell me—”
Her father raised his head and looked at her. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and low, as if every word was painful. “I want you to be happy,” he said. “Because you’re the most precious thing in my life. And I love you. You have to believe that.”
She couldn’t bear it, just as she’d known she wouldn’t be able to bear it. But she knew that she couldn’t refuse what he was offering, because refusal now would be the worst, the unkindest thing of all. There had to be a way of accepting what he’d said. And acknowledging how much it had cost him to say it.
Shakily, she took a single step toward him, coming so close that she could see her reflection in the center of his eyes. Her arm trembled as she reached out toward him.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said—and her voice was as raw and rough as his had been—“but, yes, I believe you. Thank you—”
Thank you, Father, was what she meant to say. But her mouth wouldn’t make the sound. She reached for a name that she was able to speak instead.
“Thank you—Daniel,” she said. “Thank you for what you’re doing.” And, reaching a little further, she brushed the back of his hand very lightly with the tips of her fingers.
He gave her a long look, staring into her face as if he was trying to learn it. Then he stepped back, glancing toward Zak.
“Is that good enough?” he said. “Can she go?”
Zak met his eyes. “There won’t be another chance for you,” he said. “Is this really what you want? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Daniel said.
Zak turned quickly to Lorn. “Then hurry,” he said. “Hurry—before they stop calling you.”
She looked down the cavern. At Perdew and Annet and Dess. At Cam—and all the others who’d been her friends and her family for so long. “What about everyone else?” she said. “Am I the only one who’s going to get away? Has no one else got a chance?”
Zak’s reaction startled everyone. He threw his head back and gave a joyful shout of laughter. “That’s a question for my brother,” he said. “When you find him, say, Zak has found someone to take over after the winter. Someone else who’s chosen to stay in the cavern forever. Make him tell you what that means. Now go! Before those people outside lose hope and stop calling you.”
FOR ONE LAST SECOND, LORN STARED DOWN THE CAVERN, TRYING to fix everything in her mind. Then she threw herself onto her hands and knees and began crawling through the entrance tunnel as fast as she could. Crawling toward the huge, cold world outside and the people who were calling her name.
Toward Robert. . . .
THEY COULDN’T KEEP IT UP ANY LONGER. IT WAS NEVER GOING to work. Robert could hear Emma’s voice wavering, could hear Warren starting to cry again, this time with disappointment.
“One last call!” he said fiercely. “Tom, Emma, Warren—give it all you’ve got. Don’t worry about the noise. Just shout.”
And they did, every one of them. They called her names into the empty air, with no idea of what could possibly happen. Just calling, calling, calling for the person they wanted.
And suddenly, in the mouth of the entrance tunnel, Robert saw—unbelievably—beyond his most extravagant dreams—
“Look !” he shouted. “Look! It’s her!”
Without being told, Emma stepped forward, holding the blanket wide, calling a gibberish of names. “Oh, Hope, oh, Lorn—oh, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you!”
And suddenly there she was, swelling up into the blanket, solid and real and there. Laughing at them over the fringed edge so that they could see that she was more than Hope had ever been, because she was there and free and herself.
WHEN TOM WENT BACK TO TELL MAGEE WHAT HAD HAPPENED, THE APARTMENT was completely empty. The door swung open onto bare boards and windows without curtains. When he stepped inside, the living room felt cold and damp, as though no one had been there for weeks.
He searched every room, thinking that there must be some message from Magee. But the whole apartment was picked clean, like a skeleton on a hillside. For all he could see, Magee might never have existed. They might have imagined him.
When he was sure there was nothing, he went out and turned to close the door behind him. As he pulled at it, he saw a piece of paper caught in the hinge. He tugged it free and spread it out ea
gerly. That had to be what Magee had left for him. A clue to the rest of his life.
The paper was totally blank.
That was when he understood that no one was going to write him a script. He had to work things out for himself, as he went along.
The Nightmare Game Page 21