by A. A. Bell
‘Are you okay with this?’ he asked.
She nodded, still dumbfounded.
‘Have fun then.’ He patted her shoulder, making her jump.
She heard his shoes jog away: up three hollow timber steps, across a squeaky floor, soon followed by the creak of a heavy door hinge.
It’s a trick, she thought. It has to be!
Didn’t matter. She explored the plant with her hand to double-check it was part of a hedge and not just a single bush, then swivelled the chair until she was parallel to the hedge, facing away from the steps.
He must be watching me from a window!
If he was, she’d soon learn for sure. She gripped onto the wheels, extended one naked foot as a guide to help follow the flowers towards the gate, then accelerated with all of her strength.
Sergeant Hawthorn escorted Matron Sanchez to the hot seat in the centre of the U-shaped table arrangement. The client she’d brought with her was a bent old woman with twigs in her hair and mud in her teeth, but she seemed quite content to sit in the corner
until they needed her, humming to the music the docs had provided through an expensive headset.
Turning with the intention of joining Lockman in the hall, Hawthorn noticed a set of five data drives sitting in the top of Zhou’s open briefcase. They were labelled as Stage Four Case Studies, but he could only read the codes on the top three. All had been compiled overseas during the last leg of their trip and included surveys on death row prisoners at San Quentin, trainee astronauts at Cape Kennedy and, on behalf of MI5, espionage suspects at Guantánamo Bay.
Perfect, he thought as he slipped the Guantánamo Bay drive into his pocket. The Brits must have thought they were clever using an American prison to bypass their own laws for interrogating political prisoners. They’d soon regret that.
He headed out the door and nodded to Lockman, who now stood guard in the hall.
‘Stay alert,’ he warned. ‘I’ll check the halls and exits.’
FIVE
Still accelerating, Mira followed the curve of the hedge around the circular driveway towards the gate. Her wheels stayed on the path, clacking occasionally over cracks and grooves. A branch slapped her face; she swept it over her shoulder.
Horse-racing announcements from a TV or radio crackled almost constantly with static near the gate. Again someone turned the page of a large, clumsy-to-handle newspaper. Mira hoped it would keep their attention for a few minutes longer.
She decelerated enough to pass by almost silently, ducking her head in the hope of slipping below the level of the window that she remembered touching on her day of arrival. Then, accelerating downhill, she kept alongside the hedge that led to the tram stop.
Free! she thought with the wind in her hair, a little rain too... and the distant sound of Ben, already calling her name. Impossible! The wind was still in her face, the wrong direction from him.
Her wheelchair sent a glass bottle skittering until it smashed — just as the slope levelled out, a little sooner than expected, and she panicked, gripping the wheel guides so firmly that friction burned her hands. Shestretched out with her bare feet and heels to help slow her pace. Another branch slapped her face, then another as she passed through the veil of another tree. Fearing the trunk, she crashed into something else. Something hard that she landed over — in. Something that scratched her hand and bumped her cheek.
She pushed herself off it — out of it — unable to recognise it immediately by its shape, but in pushing herself up, she also found the rough bark of a tree trunk on the other side and realised that the strange obstacle had probably saved her from a much harsher accident. Like a small roofless sports car, her saviour smelled of leather and fuel, but was cupped, with only one wheel on the nearest side and a higher padded section on the other. She couldn’t be sure. The whole contraption was covered by a loose plastic blanket.
She fumbled along it to find her toppled wheelchair, then shifted it to the other side of the contraption and tree, fearing that it could be seen from the top of the driveway.
In the distance, she heard construction noises and trucks — one struggling over rough ground and another accelerating. Neither was as close, nor intermingled with as much traffic, as she remembered from the day of her transfer. She’d been semi-sedated then, though, and manhandled by four hairy arms that made it difficult to keep her bearings. Was that three weeks ago? Or three months?
Her naked feet found the edge of the concrete path. With the lemony scent of brown boronias now behind her, she stepped cautiously off the path onto stony dirt. Her tender feet cringed.
She bumped into something hard — a thick grid against her chest and stomach. A gate maybe?
Exploring its shape urgently, she found it to be the bull bar and nose of a large vehicle. She sighed in relief, wishing she knew how to drive and wondering if she should try anyway.
Her second thought was even scarier: a vehicle so close to Serenity suggested visitors who wanted to be there.
‘Hello?’ she called nervously, and was glad when nobody answered.
Something touched her ear. She slapped it, imagining it to be Ben’s hand, but the thing rebounded and she realised it was just a leaf; a leaf attached to a branch that persisted in teasing her. She stepped away and found herself in a thicker cage of branches, soft like the veil she’d plunged through on the other side. She pushed through it, and bare dirt turned to soft grass under her feet.
A fine drizzle of rain kissed her face; Mother Nature kissing her wounds through the bandage.
Bandage!
‘Stupid! Stupid!’
Mira stumbled back through the veil into semi-hiding, knowing that she’d have to remove her blindfold now; the one thing that would make her stand out, even in a crowd from a distance. Her heart raced, but she clutched one hand to her chest for comfort, clenched her eyes shut and tore it off.
Panic seized her for an instant, but there was no white pain shooting from her eyes to the back of her skull this time. Slowly, she relaxed her eyelids a little and discovered she was still blind; still blissfully blind. No hint of light or darkness through her stitched eyelids, and no pain. Not even a dull ache.
She sighed again with relief. It must only be strong light that hurts! She prayed she was right, and tousled her fringe, hoping the wilder strands would help to mask her damaged eyelids as she stepped out from the shadows.
Still no pain. She stashed the blindfold inside the waistband of her tracksuit pants and headed closer to the kerb, stepping even more carefully now, feeling her way with her feet in the hope she could avoid more hazards without looking too obviously like a blind escapee from Serenity.
Five steps, she remembered foggily. That was all it had taken her to walk from the kerb to the tram-stop shelter upon arrival. They’d been unable to drive her uphill to the entrance because of repairs to the driveway. Five more steps from the tram stop to the tree with its concrete path that led up the hill. Smaller steps now that she didn’t have the constant badgering of hairy-armed case workers.
She guessed her five steps then translated to about ten foot lengths now, and she counted them silently to herself.
Her big toe stubbed the base of a thick timber pole. The light pole, she guessed. She hugged it to be sure of its shape and stifled another smile. The shelter had been to the left of the light pole, which, retracing her steps from the opposite direction, now put the shelter on her right. She groped for it and found it.
Inside, she found a long timber bench seat, where she tucked up her feet and waited.
The road sounded lonely, not at all the same as she remembered from that first day, when there’d been many cars parked at the bottom of the driveway.
A bird chirped a short distance away; a hint, perhaps, that she should sprout wings and fly away. Straining her ears for a promising sound, she wondered how long she’d need to wait until the next tram; or maybe she should swim to the mainland? But how could she be sure she wasn’t heading out to se
a? She clutched her temples trying to think.
‘Need a ticket?’ Ben asked. His warm breath brushed her cheek.
Mira screamed, nearly falling off the seat. A dozen questions boiled in her head while another three tangled on her tongue. How had he crept up on her with his noisy shoes? How long had he been watching? And why could she smell blood?
Her hand flew to her eyes, but the stitches were fine.
‘Get away!’ She swatted at his voice, her hands striking empty air. ‘I’m not going back there!’
‘I didn’t say you had to. Mind if I sit beside you, though?’
‘No, and stop treating me as if I’m stupid. I know why you’re here!’
Ben laughed. ‘Stupid? You’ve got to be kidding. You just broke the land-speed record for escaping and scared me half to death in the process. Nice job conning me about the need for your blindfold, by the way.’
‘I wasn’t conning you! I don’t lie! I never lie!’
‘So why don’t you need it now?’
‘I do need it. did need it, and maybe I still do need it... sometimes in bright... Ooo!’ She punched her fist into her thigh in frustration. ‘You wouldn’t understand!’
‘Not unless you explain it. How could I?’ His voice drew closer and lower, as if he was leaning down to inspect her stitches.
‘You told me not to go on about hallucinations. Did you forget that?’
‘So sue me; I take it back.’
‘Lied more like it!’
‘Well, I don’t know about lying. I really would like to sit, though; may I?’
Mira cringed away from him, her head hugging into the corner of the shelter, wondering what kind of trickhe was trying to pull. Nowhere for her to run to now, though, if he wanted to tackle her. ‘As if I could stop you,’ she snapped.
He chuckled, a soft and kind-sounding laugh that still managed to mock her.
‘No means no in any language,’ he replied. ‘Especially when it comes from a woman. So if you don’t want me to sit, Mira, just say so.’
‘How did you find me so fast? Did you see me? Follow me? Or were you always watching?’
‘May I sit?’ he persisted with his ever-patient voice.
‘Sit, go on. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll take that as a no then.’
‘I didn’t say no, I said sit. Are you deaf, or twisting my words now?’
‘You’re the one who’s twisting your words. I heard you say sit, but your tone and body language are both telling me no. So if I sat beside you now, you could rightfully accuse me of imposing my will on you.’
‘Would not!. Could not,’ she corrected. She sat up and folded her arms. ‘Go on. Sit or don’t sit. See if I care.’
‘You’re still doing it. If you really wanted me to sit, you’d ask nicely and unfold your arms. That body language is still blocking me.’
‘Ugh! I don’t want you to sit. That’s not the same as not caring. You might as well be another passenger. except, you took off your shoes to sneak up on me, didn’t you?’
‘Obviously.’ He groaned and shifted his feet. ‘I think I’ll stay standing.’
‘Now my company isn’t good enough for you?’
He chuckled and moved his feet again. ‘Ouch!. No, that’s not it.’
‘Stop teasing me then and sit, or else drag me away and be done with it. Just don’t stand there laughing at me. I hate that more than anything.’
‘Sorry. I’m not laughing at you.’
‘Oh, and now I’m deaf?’
‘I think you’re scared. It shouldn’t be of me, though. If you could see anything between those stitches, you’d see why. I’m totally shitting myself.’
‘I can’t smell that. Only blood, and why so much of it, by the way?’
‘Not that type of. Oh, er. there’s a dead bird on the road.’
‘Now I smell another lie.’
‘You think so? Matron Sanchez is going to wring my neck. Or sack me, which is probably worse, given the state of my finances.’
‘That’s not my problem.’
‘Trade you my problems for yours then? At least you have round-the-clock staff assigned to help solve yours.’
‘Not if I can help it!’ She pushed her hands down to clasp one another in her lap, wondering how long it would take him to read her change in body language, forced or not.
The planks of the seat creaked as they took his weight. ‘In fact, I might as well run away with you. I should have enough change to pay for our tickets. Unless you’ve got some cash on you?’
‘You’re serious? You’re not going to force me back?’
‘Mira,’ he said, ‘forgive me for laughing, but if we go back up that hill, I can guarantee it will be you pushing me in your wheelchair.’
‘As if!’ she snorted.
‘Right. So you can relax, can’t you?’
They sat in awkward silence for a long moment, listening to sporadic bursts of distant trucks as they rumbled over the new bridge, back and forth to the mainland.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘In opposite directions.’
‘On the same bus? That will be a good trick.’
‘You have no intention of letting me go.’ She sniffed at the breeze, but couldn’t detect any others coming yet. ‘You’re just stalling. Be honest and admit it.’
‘Maybe you’ll believe me after I pay for your bus ticket?’
‘Tram ticket.’
‘Bus ticket,’ he corrected gently.
‘Tram ticket!’
‘Bus ticket, Mira. Trams and cane trains haven’t run to this island for nearly a century.’
‘Stop treating me like I’m stupid! Trams have steel wheels and buses run on rubber. I can hear the difference, you know. And I’ve seen them.’
‘Seen trams — where? Not here, surely, unless you mean in your hallucinations?’
‘They’re not hallucinations! I saw...’
No such thing as ghost people. I can’t walk on air. The mantra shot into her head and the unexpectedness of it caused her to bite her tongue.
‘Nothing,’ she said, turning away.
‘Mira... think logically. You’re blind, even before that butcher did that to you, so what could you possibly see — or imagine that you saw — that would make you disbelieve the evidence from your own ears and other senses?’
‘I’m not allowed to talk about that, so don’t blame Fredarick. I begged him to do this to me.’
‘You’ve stunned me,’ he said. ‘Why would you want your eyes stitched shut?’
‘You can’t trick me. I’m not allowed to talk about the ghost people.’
‘A lesson learned from your correctional sessions with Neville and Steff?’
Mira turned her nose further away.
‘Okay, so don’t answer me. Listen for yourself. Trams run on rails, so they’d make a squealing steel-against-steel noise, wouldn’t they? Can you hear that?’
‘Of course not. That’s why we’re waiting.’
‘In the distance then. Any coming?’
Mira turned her nose to the teasing breeze again. ‘Yes, actually. There is!’ She pointed in the direction of the bridge. ‘I told you.’
‘That’s roadworks. They’re building a steel column for the new bridge. And you still haven’t answered me. What — or how did you see anything that made you think there were trams here?’
‘I’m not answering that. You’re still trying to trick me.’
‘Hardly. I’m trying to figure out why you’d want to run away from the only people who can help you.’
‘Help me? Ha! I looked after myself for over a year at home after my father died!’
‘Oh, I get it. You’re trying to go home.’
Mira yelped and punched the bench seat with her fist. ‘See? I knew you were trying to trick me!’
‘Trick, schmick. It’s no concern of mine anymore. I’m leaving too, remember?’
‘Liar.’
‘Makes no difference if you believe me or not. Here’s the facts. I can’t go back up there alone without losing my job. And there’s no way I can convince you to come back willingly. So I might as well leave now while it’s still my choice.’
‘At least you have a choice.’
‘Says you.’
He left her in silence for a long moment until she grew nervous, wringing her hands in her lap.
‘Maybe you can help me understand something?’ he asked. ‘It’s something I’ve wondered a lot in the last six years.’ He waited until she turned her head a little more in his direction. ‘Do you think freedom is out there?’
‘Well, it sure isn’t here.’ How stupid can he be?
‘But if freedom is out there, how did you get here?’
‘I wasn’t ready when they came for me! But I will be next time.’
‘Sure, that works for me. Planning ahead is good. It can work. But you agree there’ll be a next time. And in any case, how do you explain the vast majority of clients who are happy here, and wouldn’t live out there if you paid them?’
Her mouth opened as she tried to fathom that herself.
‘Could be a hole in your plans then, perhaps? I don’t know, Mira. But if you’re going out there alone, wouldn’t you be doing yourself a favour to find out all the facts first so you can face them as well prepared as you wish to be? For starters — and as cold as this may sound — you’re blind. You’re a ward of the state. And you’ve been declared unsafe to others as well as yourself. So where can you go that you can’t be found and brought back here; forcibly, if that’s what somebody else decides?’
She shifted uncomfortably as he let her think about that for a long moment too.
‘Have you thought far enough ahead to wonder who will be the first to find you? Police maybe, or hired goons from social services?’
‘If they find me again.’
‘But when they do, maybe not this week, maybe not this year, will they bring you back here to familiar surroundings, where at least the gardens have your favourite flowers and the breeze is fresh from the sea, like your home? Or will they send you inland to the new steel facility in the desert for clients who keep escaping with criminal intentions? And which would you prefer?’