by Jane Higgins
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t let’s fight.’
The door buzzed and swished open to Jono. He smirked in my direction. ‘I just heard. The Marsh. That’ll straighten you out. What is this? A school reunion?’ He turned to Dash. ‘It’s nearly 1800. We’ll be late.’
‘Late for what?’ I asked.
‘Prayer ‘n’ swear, of course. You’re not invited.’ He held out a hand towards Fyffe. ‘Fy?’
But she sat down on the bed and folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’ll stay with Nik.’
‘Let’s move, then,’ said Dash. ‘We’re late and I’m slow.’
Jono gave me one last filthy look as he punched the button that closed the door.
I sat on the floor by the bed. ‘Thanks. You could’ve gone. I don’t need looking after.’
‘I know,’ said Fyffe. ‘But I can pray any time.’
‘Can you? Will that help?’
She gave me half a smile. ‘It’ll help me.’
‘Didn’t help Sol.’ Tears snuck up on me again. I stuck the heels of my hands in my eyes and breathed deep. ‘Sorry,’ I said.
Fyffe sat down beside me and put her head on my shoulder. ‘Don’t be. He’s worth crying for. I think I’m all cried out for now. Do you think it was Remnant?’
‘It must have been. They wanted the other hostage dead. They want the war to escalate.’
We sat there for maybe an hour, talking about Sol and Lou – who they’d been, who they might have been, how we could remember them.
At last I said, ‘People are coming for me soon. Are you going home tonight?’
‘Yes. My poor parents. I have to help them get through this. I wish we could take you with us. They blame you. It’s stupid. You tried so hard to bring him back, and he wasn’t even your brother.’
I hated the thought of her going home to that big silent house with only her grief-stricken parents for company. And Jono arriving for weekends thinking she was still his meek little girlfriend, not knowing what she’d done, who she’d been, in Southside.
She looked up at the eye. ‘Does it listen as well as look?’
‘Yeah.’
She was silent for while, then she said, ‘Everything’s different now.’
‘Everything is.’
‘It was only three weeks and it felt like a year. I’m afraid for you. Going to the Marsh.’
‘I don’t exactly envy you.’
‘I won’t stay home forever. I want to come back to the city. I want to save a life, two lives, for Lou and Sol.’
With the eye staring at us, I didn’t ask what she meant. But knowing Fy, she meant something brave and heartfelt and, now and then, madly reckless.
Dash came back and said it was time to go: a car was waiting to take me to the Marsh.
Fyffe and I stood up and Fyffe said, ‘I might not see you for a while.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Dash. ‘He won’t be long in the Marsh.’
But that wasn’t what Fyffe meant. She kissed my cheek and whispered in Breken, ‘Dear Nik. Go home.’
CHAPTER 45
Dash and I sat locked in the back of an armored car, waiting to go to the Marsh. It was dark. The car we were in was practically hermetically sealed. There was no getting out, except through Dash.
‘Dash, we’re still friends?’
‘Course. More than friends.’
‘If I go into the Marsh, I won’t come out in one piece.’
‘Sure you will.’
‘No, listen. You have to believe either them or me about this, because only one of us is telling the truth.’
‘You only think like that because you’ve been so… indoctrinated.’
‘And you haven’t?’
‘They killed Sol! They used you to do it.’
‘Someone did. I want to find out who. I can’t do it from inside the Marsh.’
‘We know who!’
‘I don’t.’
‘I want you here, Nik, working with me. We can do good work together. Didn’t we always say that’s what we wanted?’
‘Yeah, we did.’
‘Well, then.’ She sat back, argument won. She took my hand. ‘Kiss me.’
When I didn’t move, she smiled and said, ‘What’s the matter? Forgotten how?’
So I did, I kissed her, and she said, ‘Okay, why did that feel like good-bye? You’ll be out of there in no time. And when you come out I expect something much happier. That’s an order.’
The driver arrived and as he opened the door there came a high-pitched, howling yell – a war cry – in Breken, from somewhere close. Fyffe came running towards the car, crying out. She grabbed the driver’s arm and gasped, ‘I saw them! I saw them!’
‘How many? Which way?’
‘Three or four – I couldn’t tell.’ She pointed away from the gates towards a complex of low buildings.
‘That’s where you were,’ said Dash to me. ‘They must be looking for you.’ She climbed out and I followed. Dash put an arm around Fyffe and the driver ran towards the complex. I looked at Fy. She looked back at me with a perfectly innocent expression then buried her head in Dash’s shoulder, and while Dash was telling her, don’t worry, you’re safe, I ran for the perimeter fence.
I hid in the shadows of the fence, watched the guards on the main gate, and hoped.
I hoped Dash wouldn’t be punished for taking her eye off me.
I hoped Suzannah would be okay, that they’d see that what she was offering was a chance to change the course of the war.
I hoped I could get out before they found me.
But most of all, I hoped Fyffe would be safe: that ISIS would never work out what she had just done. Her angelic face would help. Who could doubt that face? And having a powerful father, that would surely help too. I desperately didn’t want to leave her with ISIS and Jono and her grieving parents. But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t waste this brave thing she’d done for me.
I skirted the perimeter, listening for trouble. The place wasn’t exactly high security: just a hospital that they’d planted a few extra guards around. Most of the security was inside, not out. Maybe they were more stretched than they were letting on. I came to the south gate where a lone guard was shouting into his comms unit.
‘Yes! I heard it! It’s hostiles. No, I haven’t seen any. Send someone down here. We need to reinforce this gate. No, I told you, there’s only me. I don’t care! The perimeter’s weak here. Get—’
I put a boot into his back as hard as I could. He went down with a grunt, and I kicked him again and pulled his gun away. He lay there gasping. The comms unit screeched. I settled for one more kick and a word in his comms unit, in Breken: ‘We’re everywhere.’
Then I ran.
I ran about twenty blocks, heading downriver towards the Mol. In the blackout it wasn’t difficult to be invisible. What was difficult was the thought that Dash was right: I’d said good-bye, to her and to Fyffe. Maybe forever.
CHAPTER 47
The Mol at sunrise. A haze lay over the river. The bridge creaked in the cold air. Light grew in the sky. Two city guards paced at the bridge gate. I wanted to get past them, and now that I had a gun I could see a way to do that. I stood in a doorway close to the riverwall, took aim at a darkened shopfront across the road and fired. The guards came running. I hid in the shadows and when they’d gone by, shouting into their comms units, I ran onto the Mol.
I was heading for the place where Sol died. I hoped it would help me know what to do next.
But there was something there already. I was close before I saw what it was.
Suzannah. Her body had been dumped in the stain left by Sol’s blood. Now her blood ran with his. They’d slit her throat.
There was so much blood over her body and on the ground that they must have marched her there and done it as she stood in sight of home. No justice. No mercy.
The gun was heavy on my shoulder and thoughts raced through my head about what I could do with a free hand and
a loaded gun. I stood there, looking at Suzannah. The slap of the river and the waking sounds of the city and Southside receded into white noise.
I felt Sol’s blood warm on my hands, his thin shoulders in my arms and his dead weight on my chest; I smelled Lou’s charred bones and his clothes burned to his body. The echo of gunfire rattled the air and explosions and shouting rose up from the river. I saw bodies strewn up and down the Mol and blood running across the concrete, dripping through the bridge and off the bridge and pooling on the surface of the river and flowing down to Port and out to sea. Both sides of the city were burning, and there was me standing in the middle of it, uselessly, with a gun in my hands and dreams of revenge crowding my head, because Lou wouldn’t ever sit up now and laugh and say, Ha! Joke’s over! and Sol wouldn’t frown over a number puzzle I’d made for him, and Suzannah wouldn’t front up to CFM and say, ‘Here is a way forward!’ There would be only confusion and shouting and gunfire and smoke and explosions, and the dead.
Then Suzannah came back into focus and I heard her say, ‘Some days, you know, some days, I tell myself: don’t look up, the mountain is too high, but choose for this day, for this moment; that is enough.’
I moved. Took myself across ground that felt sticky with blood, through air thick with the stink of people burning and the sound of my own breath rasping. I moved to the side of the bridge, gripped the gun, took aim at the river and fired. The noise obliterated all other noise. When the bullets ran out I was deafened and gasping and sick. I lifted the gun high and hurled it into the water. Then I laid my forehead on the side of the bridge and let the cold of the ironwork slide through me until the noises of the world came flooding back. Gulls. The waves. The wind in the ironwork above me.
I went back to Suzannah. Her face was calm, and her eyes were wide and dark. Her feet were still bare. I dropped down beside her and closed her eyes. She was curled towards me like a sleeping child hiding a secret treasure. When I looked closely I saw what it was. She was wearing a jacket packed with explosives. A message from the city to those who would come to take her home to Southside.
A crowd was gathering at the Southside gate. A man left the group and walked onto the bridge. My father. As tall and lean and battle-hungry as he’d been the first time I saw him. He said, ‘Ah, no,’ and put a hand out to Suzannah’s hair.
‘Don’t touch her,’ I said. ‘She’s dead.’
‘So I see.’ He knelt beside her without speaking for a while, then he said, ‘You got away. That’s impressive. We thought we’d lost you.’
‘I’m not yours to lose.’
He ignored that and, ever the strategist, said, ‘Did you talk to her? Did she tell you anything?’
‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, she did.’
‘She did? What? What did she say?’
‘She wished me peace. She was afraid, and preoccupied with trying to broker a way forward, but she stopped and wished me peace. Then they took her away and killed her and now they’ve wired her body. A little push, from you or me, and we’ll be blown sky high.’
He sat back on his heels. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘This is where Sol died. See that? It’s blood. His blood. This is where we killed him—’
‘We didn’t kill him—’
‘—and I’m finding it hard to forgive myself for that. And for Suzannah, since the one followed the other. So you can imagine how I feel about you. But you don’t escape so lightly either. They know you’re alive now. They drugged me and I don’t know what I told them, but it was probably everything. So, you were right – they were playing a long game after all – I was a spy for them and didn’t know it. And I met Frieda. She’s one of them. I think she always was.’
‘Listen to me—’
‘Why? So you can tell me that this is war? And that I’m being naive?’
‘They won’t negotiate.’
‘Funny. They say the same about you.’
‘We must find a position of strength to negotiate from.’
‘And they say that too.’
‘They prey on us.’
‘I know that. But who do you prey on? Lanya thinks victory will bring peace and justice and food and health and education for everyone. Suzannah thought so too.’
‘So don’t you want to avenge this death?’
‘No!’ I heard the yell in my voice and stopped because it wouldn’t take much to keep on yelling. I wanted him to understand. I said, ‘That’s what she was trying to change. That’s why she didn’t escape when the exchange went wrong. She wanted to give the city a chance: to choose not to avenge Sol’s death.’
He thought about that, then said, ‘You must understand—’
‘What I understand is that I’ve seen the bodies.’
‘You think this is simple? Don’t you think if there was a simple answer we’d have come to it by now?’
‘No, I think it’s very complicated. It’s you that’s made it simple, you and them between you. You kill Sol, they kill Suzannah. They shell the townships, you bomb the city. They train their children in fear and hatred and killing. You call yours to glory and freedom and death.’
He shut up then. I watched Suzannah.
Minutes ticked by. He said, ‘Is there a timer on those explosives?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t looked.’
‘Christ.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going for a bomb squad. Come with me. Come on!’
I shook my head.
He turned away and whistled sharply. Two guards came running up and he sent them to get the squad. He looked back at me. ‘For God’s sake. What’s to be gained by this?’
‘Nothing.’ My voice came out quiet and cracked. ‘Nothing is to be gained by it. I’m just saying good-bye.’
‘You didn’t even know her.’
‘Nor did you, or you’d have known what she was trying to do. I did know Sol. And Lou and Bella. And Dr Williams. And Lev. And Elena. And I never said a proper good-bye to any of them.’
He stood there a long time, watching me. Maybe he was afraid I’d blow up the bridge if he left. I wished he would go and leave me alone, but when he did finally move he didn’t go; he came and sat on the ground beside me. I couldn’t, with him that close, say anything at all.
River waves hit the pylons under us with a regular thwack. A breeze off the water ruffled Suzannah’s hair. At last he spoke. ‘They won’t leave you, you know, your dead. You can say good-bye, but they pitch camp in your mind. Sometimes you wish they wouldn’t. That they’d come to you on your terms not on theirs. They remind you of what you couldn’t do, or be.’ He picked up Suzannah’s hand. ‘They remind you that they’re gone.’
He lifted a thin chain from around his neck. On it hung the talisman of the Southside Charter. Silver, like the one the ISIS agent had taken from me. ‘Here,’ he held it out to me. ‘Yours now.’ I took it on my palm and he said, ‘You are, in fact, ours to lose.’
He stood up to meet the bomb squad.
They arrived at a run. ‘Sir?’
‘First priority is your team in one piece. If it looks too hard, it is too hard – don’t do it. But if you can, we want her back home for a Crossing. And the bridge intact.’
‘Sir!’ They looked at me. ‘What about the boy?’
‘His name is Nikolai. He’s grown; he can decide for himself.’ He walked away down the bridge.
CHAPTER 48
Lanya watched me walk off the bridge. A crowd had gathered at the gate, but it was a blur: all I could see was her, standing straight and solemn and beautiful. People made way for me; she opened her arms, and I walked into them and held on for dear life.
Remnant was toppled by Sol’s murder, in Moldam at least. The trail from gunman to Council wasn’t hard to trace, and added weight to DeFaux’s testimony about Councillor Terten and his plan to assassinate Commander Vega. And since the web of Sol’s kidnap spread to Blackbyre, Remnant’s fall in Moldam threatened their hold on the Blackbyre Council too, and on others – ripples
turned into breakers. All that, in the few days I’d been away.
That night there was a Crossing for Suzannah. Like the one for Tamsin all those weeks ago. The people preparing it asked me to speak to Suzannah’s family and I said I would, if that’s what they wanted, but were they sure about that, because what could I tell them? That she’d died honorably and needlessly? In the end I met them and told them the bare facts and left them to decide.
Sitting there, watching them – mother, sisters, and brother – I thought of the Hendrys taking the road home to Ettyn Hills. And I thought that one day I’d go there again and see them. Not to explain or excuse. Just to see them and sit with them and tell them what Fy had done in Southside. And if Fy was there, how great that would be. But chances are she’d be away, being true to her word, trying to save some lives. I knew she wouldn’t stop at two.
The crowd sang Suzannah off the bridge and down to the pyre that was waiting for her. Commander Vega spoke and told us what we’d lost in losing her. And then we stood in silence. No one urged us on to glory. No one roared or punched the air.
Lanya danced. I watched. She’d wept for Sol and for Suzannah. When I told her what had happened Cityside, and what Fyffe had done, she listened and nodded, then took my hands in hers. ‘And here you are. I’m glad. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t come back.’
‘Well, it was this or the Marsh, which would you pick?’
She smiled. ‘No. Once you’d got away you could have gone anywhere.’
But I think that’s only partly true. The dead drew me back to the bridge, and the living drew me across it.
The dancers lit the pyre and flames leapt into the night. We stood in silence, watching, remembering our dead.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone who read this book, or versions thereof, in draft, particularly Bernadette Hall, Frankie Macmillan, Fleur Beale, Morrin Rout, Fiona Farrell, and my fellow scribblers at the Hagley Writers’ Institute, and also to Martyn Beardsley for his clear-sighted critique. Special thanks to everyone at Text for their warm welcome and to Jane Pearson in particular for her keen eye and sound advice. To Hugh, Marion, Finn, and Niall Campbell and Barbara Nicholas who read this and other stories, a huge and lasting thank you. And thanks, always, to Paul, who listened and whose problem-solving was terrific.