But something was trying to drag her out of the dream. Slowly, painfully, she came to consciousness. She ached all over and a dull throb in her hips made her groan as she tried to roll over.
‘Sleepyhead, wake up,’ said a voice.
Despite the pain, Bo sat up abruptly, pulling at the blanket to cover herself. ‘Who are you?’
The girl sitting on the end of her bed was like a fairy out of a picture book. Her long burnished hair reached to her waist, her teeth were as white as salt and her lips shiny pink. She wore a pair of loose turquoise pants and a matching top that reached to her knees. She was smaller than Bo and her face was as soft as a baby’s but there was nothing baby-like about her expression. She leaned forward conspiratorially.
‘I’m Li-Li. I’m going to be your best, best, bestie,’ she said.
‘My beastie?’
‘No, silly. Your best, best friend.’
Bo remembered when Callum had told her they were best friends, putting his face close to hers and giving her a butterfly kiss. She suddenly imagined what it would feel like if she leant closer to Li-Li, close enough for the other girl’s long, thick black eyelashes to brush against her cheek. She shivered.
‘I already have a best friend,’ she said. ‘He’s called Callum.’
Li-Li raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows and laughed. ‘A boyfriend? Boyfriends can’t be best friends.’
She slipped off the end of the bed and wandered over to the window. ‘This is such a pretty room, isn’t it? I wish they’d given me this room.’
Bo simply grunted in assent and watched the fairy-girl through narrowed eyes. Now that she’d recovered from her surprise, the pain was coming back to her. She put one hand to her head and groaned softly. ‘I hurt. I hurt everywhere.’
Li-Li looked at Bo sharply. ‘You’re lucky. Foundlings are always lucky. I’m a foundling too. I sailed into the harbour three years ago and they rescued me as my boat was sinking. They say we might be the best variety of girl. We take longer to ripen.’
Despite the pain, Bo laughed. ‘We’re not fruit.’
‘I wasn’t making a joke,’ said Li-Li. She crossed the room and stood over Bo, hands on hips. ‘I’m here to help you. To help you understand how we live and what’s going to happen next. It’s all been decided while you were sleeping.’
‘I haven’t decided anything,’ said Bo, easing herself upright.
This time Li-Li laughed, a high tinkling that Bo thought was the most annoying sound she’d ever heard. ‘Nothing you decide matters,’ said Li-Li. ‘Nothing you decide is important. From now on, everything is decided for you.’
The words were barely out of Li-Li’s mouth when the door burst open and Alethea entered with Meera and Verity.
‘That’s enough, Li-Li. We don’t want you two to have a spat before you’ve had a chance to get to know each other.’
She smiled as she spoke but she was transparently angry.
‘Pooh,’ said Li-Li, laughing again, and this time her laugh was lighter. She looked over at Bo. ‘I was only teasing, wasn’t I, girlfriend?’
‘The child doesn’t need to be teased,’ said Alethea. ‘She needs our help and support to recover.’
Bo fought down her anger. Something had happened to her while she lay sleeping. Something had been done to her, and her body felt fragile.
Meera tried to take Bo’s hand but Bo snatched it away. ‘We’re so glad you’re feeling better, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’re all going to be such good friends.’
Bo ignored her, instead directing a question at Alethea.
‘Where are the boys, the boys that I was captured with?’ she asked.
‘They are in safe hands,’ said Alethea. ‘But surely you could not have been with those boys very long. Whoever raised you has kept you intact. He must have been a very fine gentleman to protect you. A Colony man, perhaps?’
Bo understood she was fishing for information but her ’twitian told her to give away nothing. ‘I took care of myself,’ she said.
‘But now we can take care of you,’ said Meera, putting her hands on Bo’s shoulders and staring into her eyes. ‘Now you can have a real mother. When we cross over to the Colony, I’ll be the mother you’ve always needed. We’ll have so much to share with each other.’
She tried to kiss Bo on the cheek but Bo recoiled. ‘I don’t want a mother,’ she said. ‘Or a new best friend. I want you to let me go and be with the boys.’
Everyone laughed, including Li-Li. ‘When you’re feeling recovered and you’ve had time to get to know us better, you’ll feel differently. Once you understand what it means to be a woman, you will be glad to be with your sisters,’ said Alethea. ‘For now, Li-Li will help you understand how we do things.’
With that, the three women left the room. Meera looked over her shoulder and blew Bo a kiss before pulling the door shut. Bo felt a chill that made her shiver again. She looked down at her naked body, saw bruises on her arms and thighs, and winced at the dull, throbbing ache in her lower back. She wanted to cry but didn’t want to give Li-Li the satisfaction or risk Meera coming back to comfort her.
Li-Li sat on the bed, smiling like a Cheshire cat. ‘Don’t mind Meera. She wants to be everyone’s mother. Once we’ve gone back to South Head, you’ll feel better. They won’t touch you again for a while. I heard Alethea say you were a virgin and didn’t need any fixing. Clever you.’
‘A virgin?’
‘You must know what that means!’ said Li-Li. ‘You haven’t been with a boy or a man.’
‘Yes I have,’ said Bo.
‘Not in a way that matters,’ said Li-Li smugly.
Bo thought of Callum. How could anyone think what they shared didn’t matter?
‘It’s good neither of us is ripe yet. They thought I was but it was a false alarm,’ said Li-Li, looking at her fingernails.
‘What do you mean “ripe”?’ asked Bo, looking down at her washed and scrubbed body. Maybe she should have left the dirt on as a protective layer, to separate herself from these clean, perfectly groomed people.
‘Oh nothing,’ said Li-Li as she looked to the door and frowned. She gestured for Bo to draw closer, then wrapped her arms around Bo’s neck and nuzzled close to her ear. ‘They hear everything we say. When we get away from here I can tell you anything you want to know but you have to be my best friend, okay?’
Bo pulled away and stared at her. She was beautiful, she was strange, and for all her fluffy softness there was a sharpness about Li-Li, like a knife, like a magnet.
‘Okay, girlfriend,’ said Bo.
27
BREAKOUT
‘They need to pee,’ said Roc, pushing Callum and six of the smaller Festers towards a soldier-drone. ‘They all need to pee before they lie down or they’ll piss themselves during the night.’ Roc grinned at the soldier-drone as if he was feeling cheerfully ‘enhanced’ and the drone grunted in acknowledgment.
Callum watched Roc carefully as the boys were herded into the urinals, waiting for his cue. Now that the Festers were sedated, only two soldier-drones were sent to manage them. He noted a row of louvre windows, like narrow vents, above the urinals.
It happened quickly. One moment Callum was waiting for a signal from Roc, the next Roc had disarmed the first soldier-drone, smashing his head against the edge of the urinal. Then he turned the taser on the other drone, slamming his face against the floor and knocking him senseless before his cries could raise the alarm.
‘Quickly, on my shoulders,’ he said to Callum. ‘Pull the slats out and see what’s out there.’
While two of the Festers stood on watch by the doorway, Callum jumped onto Roc’s shoulders and began tearing out the old vents and handing them down to the other boys. It took only a minute to make a space big enough to climb through. He wriggled onto the sill. They were high up, above the ruined funfair. Three metres below, a narrow ledge stretched along a steep wall of concrete.
‘There’s a ledge but it’s not
very wide,’ said Callum.
‘Let’s get as many of them out as we can,’ said Roc. ‘Hold still.’
The smaller boys began scaling Roc and Callum’s bodies, as if the two of them formed a single tree. When they reached the windowsill, Callum boosted them out into the night. The first boy made a small squawk as he dropped. They managed to set four boys free before the Festers on guard warned of a soldier-drone approaching. Callum jumped onto the sill and then turned around to offer Roc his hand but Roc brushed it aside and pulled himself up before diving through the window. Inside the facility, alarms wailed. The two Festers who’d stood guard shouted for Roc to save them but it was too late.
Callum jumped from the windowsill, landing beside Roc. The other Festers had already disappeared into the night. Inside, one of the boys was screaming as if he had been tasered, and Callum wanted to cover his ears to block out the agonised shrieks. He looked at Roc but Roc ignored the sound as he scanned the terrain.
‘Left or right?’ asked Callum, swallowing hard.
‘They’ll send drones for us either way. We’ll go straight down.’
‘But what about the others?’
‘They had a head start and they know where to go. The North Shore is our territory.’
As he spoke, Roc began sliding down the slope, scrabbling for a foothold on the cracked concrete. Callum followed, using his hands to slow the speed of his fall. When they reached the bottom of the incline, they teetered on the edge of a ten-metre drop into darkness. Beneath them, the old funfair rollercoaster’s scaffolding poked up out of the harbour, like a spiderweb etched against the dark water. They could hear a Pally-val taking off from the front of the facility and knew that any minute now they would be spotlighted, an easy target for the soldier-drones.
‘Use that old roof down there to break the fall,’ said Roc. Next moment he was gone, launching himself into the inky darkness. Callum shut his eyes and hurled himself off the wall before hesitation could overtake him.
The funfair roof buckled beneath him and then gave way. As he crashed through two layers of ceiling, he was glad of his circus training. He knew to relax into the fall and trust his instincts. Scrambling out of a pile of shredded canvas and broken timber, he stumbled into the flooded funfair. A line of clown heads, black water lapping into their open mouths, watched as he scanned the arcade. He stood very still, listening for Roc.
‘Roc,’ he called in a loud whisper. ‘Where are you?’
He was answered by the roar of descending Pally-vals. Their lights strobed overhead, eerily illuminating the ruined funfair. Callum took a step forward but the pile of flotsam and jetsam on which he stood shifted beneath his feet and before he knew it, he was up to his waist in pitch-black water. The coldness of it made his skin creep with goosebumps. Gritting his teeth, he waded into the derelict amusement park. He edged his way past fallen spires and coronets, past the rusted Slippery Slide and the shattered Hall of Mirrors, deeper into the ruined Palace of Dreams.
‘Slow down, Scab,’ came Roc’s voice. ‘They’ll spot us both if you splash around like that.’
The older boy clung with one arm to the frame of a giant cracked mirror as small waves washed against his chest. His face was pale, his body strangely lopsided.
‘I landed badly,’ he said. ‘You look fine. You must be made of rubber.’
‘I know how to fall,’ said Callum. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I hit a pole when I went through the roof. I think my leg’s broken.’
‘What do you want to do? We can’t stay here.’
Roc didn’t answer for a moment. Callum could tell by his breathing that he was in pain.
‘Up there, that thing sticking out of the water,’ said Roc finally. ‘They won’t be able to see us if we climb inside it.’
‘Okay,’ said Callum. ‘Lean on me.’
Roc wrapped his arm around Callum’s shoulder and Callum staggered under the weight of the bigger boy. Each time they stumbled, Roc’s face contorted in agony. They kept to the shadows and slowly, painfully made their way to the cover of a broken amusement ride. As they drew closer, Callum could see that it had once been a merry-go-round.
The Pally-val lights flashed across the water and the dirty mirrors of the merry-go-round sent fragments of light dancing through the ponies. Callum hauled Roc through the maze of horses until he found an ornately carved sled in which they could shelter. Each time the Pally-vals buzzed low over the funfair, the boys crouched down, trying to avoid detection.
‘We need to move again,’ said Callum. ‘We can’t do this all night.’
Roc winced. ‘How far?’
‘The controller’s booth, in the centre of the merry-go-round. The lights won’t be able to reach us in there.’
Roc groaned as Callum hauled him up the steps and into the black heart of the control booth.
At dawn, a soft light spread across the funfair. It seeped in under the cover of the merry-go-round and woke Callum. Now that he could see, he realised Roc’s left foot was twisted away from his body, as if it were sewn on sideways, and the whole of his leg was mottled and swollen.
When Callum knelt down beside him, Roc opened one bloodshot eye.
‘We have to get out of here, Scab. They might send a boat down to scout for us once it’s light. If you help me into the water, we can swim for it, and crawl to shore further north, past the point.’
Callum couldn’t see Roc swimming more than a few metres, let alone all the way around the rocky shore, but he had no better plan.
‘Maybe I can find something to keep us afloat,’ he said.
He climbed out of the merry-go-round and scanned the amusement park. Everything was awash with a pinkish glow and a crowd of seagulls swooped over the crumpled clown-face entrance. A flotilla of rubbish ebbed against the ferris wheel. Wedged between the detritus and the wheel was a small platform – a raft. Callum dog-paddled out to the wreckage.
The ‘raft’ was only a series of planks held together by a single crosspiece with a flotation device lashed to the two front corners. Callum scrambled onto it, still clinging to the ferris wheel for support in case the raft tipped over. He drew a floating branch out of a matted knot of seaweed and driftwood and used it to push the raft away, trying to paddle it towards the merry-go-round. Roc had dragged himself out of the control booth and sat clinging to the leg of a white wooden pony, waiting.
‘You’ll have to try and swim to the raft. I can’t bring it in to the merry-go-round,’ called Callum. ‘The tide is against me.’
Roc looked at the short distance, took a deep breath and doggedly thrashed his way to the edge of the raft. It rocked wildly as Callum hauled him onto the weathered planks.
‘I’ll take you around the edge of the harbour,’ said Callum. ‘That way you won’t have to go far to find Festie. We’ll make a splint for your leg and you can rest there. Then I’m going to cross over to the south side to find my fathers. And Bo. I need to find Bo. Then we’ll all try to help the Festers.’
Roc lay on his back, his pale face turned to the morning sky. ‘You don’t understand, Scab. Your fathers . . .’
He breathed deeply for a few minutes and then continued. ‘Your fathers will betray you or be killed for betraying the Colony. And Bo . . .’
‘What? You think Bo will betray me too? Because you think girls are evil or something? She’s not like that.’
Roc spoke without opening his eyes. ‘You’re never going to see Bo again. They won’t let you near her. She belongs to the old men now.’
‘I brought her here. I promised I’d help her.’
‘Isn’t a promise you can keep.’ He seemed to drift into sleep, as if the effort of talking had drained him of all his strength.
Callum began to angle the raft out of the funfair, using the branch as both a pole and a paddle.
Roc spoke again. ‘Harbour – full of mines,’ he said, without opening his eyes. ‘Try for shore, not harbour.’
‘I’m
trying,’ snapped Callum. But they were swept into a current and carried into open water.
‘I’m not going to make it,’ said Roc, suddenly opening his eyes.
‘Hold on!’ cried Callum. Roc was slipping from the raft, his legs trailing in the water.
Callum tried to haul him back but Roc was a dead weight, his hands icy-cold, his body limp. The makeshift oar fell overboard and drifted away on the tide. Callum lay across Roc, pinning him to the raft, but he knew he couldn’t keep him there for long.
‘Help Festers,’ said Roc. ‘Festers take old men down. Take down old men – girl belong to you.’ Each word taxed him until his strength was gone. He lay limp and exhausted, his eyes closed.
‘Don’t talk, Roc,’ said Callum. ‘Save your strength.’
‘Go to “The Crag”,’ he rasped. ‘Find Festie. Tell him . . . make Festers strong. Gaias will help. Tell him . . . find Sons of Gaia.’
A small wave broke over the raft and Callum was washed into the sea. As he scrabbled back on board, Roc slipped over the side. Callum reached for him but all he saw was the pale glint of Roc’s head sinking deep beneath the blue-green water.
Callum let out a howl and a lone seagull echoed his cry. He shouted at the wind and clung to the raft as it was swept further into the harbour. Finally, when his voice grew hoarse, he sat up and scanned the water. He was alone, completely alone and adrift.
Above, the morning sky turned a deeper blue. The raft rocked crazily beneath him, cresting the waves as it drifted, following the tide. Rising from the water, like spiky black sea anemones, were hundreds of mines. The raft bobbed precariously between them, passing into the shadow of a huge, broken suspension bridge that had once spanned the harbour from south to north. He stared up at the wreckage. Long cords of steel dangled from it and Callum realised this was his one chance of survival. Although the centre of the bridge had been blown away, the far section joined cleanly with the south shore. Without stopping to think, he started to climb the thick metal cord. It was like shinnying up a tree made of twisted metal. The wind made his sweat cold and his hands grew raw as he clambered upwards like a monkey.
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