by Zoe Marriott
“This is great, thanks. But you do realize it’s too late, right?”
Her eyes went wide with shock. “Mimi – look, I know I said some stupid stuff, but—”
“I’ve already seen inside your wardrobe,” I interrupted. “What’s seen cannot be unseen. I know your terrible secret … neat freak.”
She gawped at me for a long second. Then her head fell back and she let out a helpless, relieved gurgle of laughter.
“It is no laughing matter, missy,” I said, deadpan. “Our whole relationship is built on lies. I thought you were one of the normal slobs like me.”
“As if you’ve ever been normal!” She snorted. Her arms shot out without any warning and suddenly she was hugging me, slipping towel, sword, bundle of clothes and all.
It was weird.
It was weird because up until a few days ago we never hugged – not like this – but suddenly hugging was a thing we did and I hadn’t adjusted yet. It was weird because the last time she hugged me I broke down and howled into her shoulder like my heart was breaking, and she had held me and wordlessly comforted me until I could stand on my own two feet again. And it was weird because I was little Mio and she was big Jack, and yet now I was at least three or four inches taller than her, and she somehow felt small, and fragile, the same way she had looked when she was all huddled up in that hospital bed, dying of the Foul Women’s taint.
With my arms full, I couldn’t even try to hug her back, and a guilty part of me was glad. She was just … too close. Too much. I have to keep it together.
Thankfully it was over in less than a count of five. Jack moved back and then swiped her forearm quickly over her eyes.
“We’re good now, yeah?” I said uneasily. “Cos, honestly, I’m feeling a little underdressed for this occasion.”
“Whatevs, She-Ra,” she retorted, grinning. “You know it’s your secret dream to get naked with me.”
“I think you’re confusing my secret dreams with your filthy fantasies, perv,” I shot back, turning towards my room with relief. Keep it together just a little longer…
“Mimi?” The tentative note in her voice stopped me.
I glanced back over my shoulder, trying not to let impatience or fatigue or just how close I was to cracking show on my face. “Yep?”
“I know I was a muppet before. I’m sorry.”
Something – something soft and vulnerable – stirred inside me. It hurt. My hands curled into fists around my towel and the pile of clothes. Don’t. Please don’t. I can’t…
“You don’t have to apologize, Jack. I get it. It’s OK.”
“What about you?” Her dark, perceptive eyes – eyes that always saw more than people realized – were intent on my face. “Are you OK? I know that’s a stupid question – you can’t be OK – but … I don’t know what’s happening in your head any more.”
The forced smile felt unnatural, like a jagged break across my face. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
I fled into my bedroom, closing the door, before she could catch me out in any more lies.
A severe-looking woman in a raincoat stood outside the familiar black door of 10 Downing Street. Other newspeople jostled around her, but she clung doggedly to her position as she stared at the camera.
“The strange wave of severe allergic reactions that swept through London like wildfire over the past forty-eight hours now appears to be under control, with a number of London Primary Care Trusts reporting that patients previously suffering with these mysterious symptoms have been discharged. But this brings us to a wider issue: currently most of London’s hospitals are all but empty, after what experts are describing as ‘an inexplicable spontaneous healing’ affected thousands of patients with all kinds of injuries and illnesses. This extraordinary phenomenon has confounded medical science, and has already been dubbed ‘a modern miracle’ and ‘an act of God’ by religious leaders. We’re here waiting for an official statement from the prime minister, who cut short his state visit to India to return to the UK following the hospitalization of Health Secretary Daniel Anders.”
The programme returned to a studio set and a male newsreader at a desk. “Thank you, Diana. We will bring you an update as soon as the PM begins his statement,” he said. “In the meantime, the BBC and the family of newsreader Felicity Tamworth would like to express their thanks and gratitude for the messages of support which have been pouring in since she was taken ill on air. Ms Tamworth is now fully recovered and at home with her family.
“In other news…” A slightly blurry picture of an ordinary street awash with vivid red liquid beneath a vast, black, mushroom-shaped cloud replaced the newsreader’s face. “Meteorologists have been caught out by a series of highly unusual weather systems which have sprung up, apparently without warning, all across the wider London area over the past twenty-four hours. There have been reports of violent electrical storms, hailstones the size of tennis balls and even mini-tornados. The unusual weather is believed to have caused substantial property damage. Eye witnesses at one location have described a deluge of rain which was blood-red in colour and extraordinary cloud formations. Dr Janice Fincher, a senior member of the Royal Meteorological Society, has come under fire from the Bishop of York after describing the weather of the last twenty-four hours as ‘like something from the end of days’…”
It’s for their own good, I told myself firmly, as I crept down the stairs. The awkward conversation with Jack had just made it clear to me what I had to do. They wouldn’t like it, but … it was the only option.
One of my hands reached back nervously to touch the silk-wrapped hilt of the katana in his sheath on my back. The other tightened around the short note I’d scribbled on Hello Kitty stationery in my bedroom. By the time they realized what had happened I would already be long gone.
I was almost sure they were all in the living room, gathered around the TV, but I paused for a second at the bottom step to make sure I could hear each of their voices, talking quietly over the morning news. Yes, the way was clear. As I sidled into the kitchen, the scent of coffee and bacon sandwiches made my stomach turn over uneasily. Hunger or nausea? Probably both. I looked around, then stuck the folded note on the breakfast bar underneath one of Dad’s herb pots. There. They couldn’t possibly miss it. I’d done all I could.
I made my break for the door.
My fingers had just made contact with the handle when someone cleared their throat, loudly and obnoxiously, behind me. I managed not to flinch, but my turn wasn’t as slow and controlled as I would have liked.
Jack stood in the kitchen doorway, face stony, arms crossed over her chest. “Going somewhere?”
I met her gaze without blinking. “That’s rhetorical, right?”
“Well, at least you’re not trying to lie to me.” She held up one finger as if to ask for a minute, then shouted, “Hey, guys! Mr Yamato! I think you need to come into the kitchen right now!”
“Jack!” I hissed.
“Don’t even with the betrayed face,” she snapped, folding her arms again as the others spilled out into the hall behind her. “You were about to ditch us and go off on your own like freaking Harry heading into the Forbidden Forest to give himself up to Voldemort.”
“What?” Hikaru asked, bewildered. “Volde-who?”
“Don’t worry, Hikaru,” I said acidly. “She’s talking Geek. Just ignore her.”
“What’s that?” Rachel asked, pointing at the breakfast bar. I leapt forward, but she was faster, snatching my note out from under the small terracotta pot and unfolding it.
“I’ll take that,” my dad said crisply.
Rachel passed it to him without a word.
“‘Dear everyone,’” my father read aloud. “‘I know you’re going to be upset with me for leaving like this, but it’s for the best…’”
“Dad.” Mortification squirmed through me. “Don’t read it like that.”
“Why not? I assume you left it here for us to read,” he said calmly, not lo
oking away from the pink notepaper. “Where was I? Oh, yes: ‘… it’s for the best. This morning just proves that. I’ve already put you all in so much danger and I can’t stand losing anyone else. I started this and I promised that I would finish it, but none of you need to be involved. Please stay in the house and be safe. I will come back if I can. Take care, love, Mio.’ Well, isn’t that touching?” He crumpled the note into a small pink ball and threw it across the room, where it bounced off the wall and landed neatly in the kitchen bin.
“Mio,” Hikaru said, genuinely shocked. “You were really going to try to go up against Izanami alone?”
“Damn straight she was,” Jack said. “I knew she was planning something stupid. This is why you couldn’t look me in the eye earlier, isn’t it?”
“I’m looking at you now,” I said evenly. “And, yes, Hikaru, I was leaving. What I said in the note is true. I’m responsible for this mess. There’s no good reason for any of you to be endangered further.”
“Except that we chose to be,” said Rachel.
The soft words hit me like a sandbag in the face.
If you love me, do not take that choice from me. That had been Shinobu’s last, passionate plea. The last words he had ever said: You have to let me go.
I didn’t even realize that I’d taken a step back until the handle of the door dug into my hip. My face must have done something really awful, because Jack’s tense shoulders suddenly slumped, and Hikaru looked like he was going to cry. The urge to wrench the door open and flee was strong – but my dad’s fierce expression had changed now, too, and his unfamiliar look of … of understanding … held me still. He stepped forward. I hesitated, fingers clenching on the handle behind me, as his hand came to rest gently on my shoulder.
“Maybe it would be easier for you to be alone out there,” he said softly. “Maybe you’d feel less guilty, less conflicted, less afraid. But it’s our city you’re fighting for, Midget Gem. Our lives. Our world. And we have a right to fight too, if we choose to. You can’t take that from us. Not to keep us safe. Not even to keep your heart safe.”
You have to let me go.
That agonizing warmth tried to unfold inside me again. Tears wanted to come. I crushed it all down. If I broke, even once – if I let one single emotion out – I would shatter and be useless. I had to hold it together until this was done.
But did that mean I needed to do it alone?
“You really are so much like me,” Dad said, the words quiet enough that it felt as if he was talking to himself more than anything. Unlike the last time he had told me that, when I’d wanted to punch him in the face, this time I knew – accepted – that it was true. Being a control freak ran in the family. At least neither of us was as bad as my grandfather.
Shinobu had been right. If you love people, you have to let them make their own decisions. Sometimes all you can do is let go.
I shuddered, let out a shaky breath and nodded. “OK,” I said tiredly. “Message received.”
There was a collective sigh of relief. Rachel gave me a small, approving smile, Hikaru stopped giving me anime princess eyes and Jack strode forward and punched me lightly on the arm.
“Ow. Crap. What is your arm made of these days, cement?” she muttered, shaking her hand out. “Listen, I’ll give you a freebie on this one, since I was an ass earlier and you let me off. But no more self-sacrificing bull, Mimi. I don’t care if you do have the Power of Grayskull, I can still take you. Probably.”
Looked like I still had … what? Backup? A team? I had no idea what to do with them, and I couldn’t exactly feel good about it, but … I didn’t feel terrible about it, either. That was probably the best I could hope for.
Between them, Jack and my dad herded me back into the living room and pretty much force-fed me a bacon sandwich and a mug of tea. Then Jack sat down in the middle of the big sofa with Hikaru on one side of her and Rachel on the other. My dad took the armchair by the fireplace and turned the volume on the TV down. I sat alone on the other sofa, finishing my tea while all of them stared at me like I was a time bomb that might go boom at any moment.
You want to stick with me? Fine. You can get used to me playing dirty.
“Rachel,” I said. “Sorry if you’ve already explained, but – what happened to you? Where’ve you been? You’re OK now?”
It worked. Everyone’s anxious faces suddenly zeroed in on Rachel instead of me. She shifted uncomfortably, staring down into her mug.
“I don’t really know what I did or where I went after I … ran away. It’s all jumbled up and confused. Cat-thoughts. Instincts. Wanting to hunt. Kill.”
Her voice trailed off and she shivered. I felt a tiny pang of guilt for putting her in the hot seat.
“I don’t remember going to the hospital. I just sort of … woke up there. Staring down at Jack. And Jack was having one of those awful fits. I didn’t know if I’d hurt her, done something to her. I ran away again and hid in the sewer. After – after I…” She knotted her hand into a fist, then gently uncurled the fingers as if in release. “When the pain stopped and I thought – felt – that I was OK, I just had to get out and get away. The university wasn’t far, and I had my student pass in the pocket of my jeans. I always leave spare clothes in my locker at the swimming pool, so I went in, cleaned up, changed and then…” She shrugged sheepishly. “I went to the library.”
Jack let out a choked laugh. “Oh my God, that is typical. Completely typical. Were you worried about missing an assignment deadline?”
“Shut up,” Rachel said, smiling a little. “I just wanted to be quiet and alone – get my head around everything. Make sure I was really back to normal. I drank hot chocolate and … waited. I even slept for a bit. When I was sure nothing bad was going to happen, I came home. And, you know, found Mio nearly being eaten by a giant spider.”
“What? I didn’t see that!” Jack yelped.
“You were too busy grabbing the firebombs,” Hikaru put in. “I saw it, though. Rachel clocked it in the side and knocked it right off. It went flying.”
I gave Rachel a questioning look.
She shrugged again and put down her mug on the coffee table. Picking up an empty metal serving plate with her right hand, she poked it sharply with the index finger of her left. There was a rending noise, and Rachel’s finger popped out of the bottom of the plate.
“I’m pretty strong,” she said, with what I thought was epic understatement. “But I can control it now.”
Seeing the alarmed expressions on Hikaru and my dad’s faces, I quickly said, “The king – your king, Hikaru – told me this could happen. If people recover from the Nekomata’s bite, they have gifts. Seeing in the dark. Speed. Strength.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jack said slowly. “My sister is Catwoman now?”
“I suppose that makes you the Joker, then.” Rachel reached out to mess up Jack’s spiky hair.
Jack squeaked, trying to bat Rachel’s hands away. “Not the hair!”
“Oh, please. Try that on me when you don’t have an inch of roots.”
Hikaru leaned out of their way, looking confused and not sure if he should try to intervene. I could sympathize. Siblings were odd.
Children, please. Must I separate you?
The echo of Shinobu’s voice in my memory was so real. It was as if he was right next to me. My hand clamped down instinctively over the katana’s hilt, and I struggled to keep my expression blank as I breathed through the aching sense of emptiness.
Shinobu? Can you hear me? I’m here. I’ve got you.
I realized I’d let my eyes fall shut and hurriedly forced them open, hoping no one had noticed.
Only Hikaru seemed to have picked up on my weirdness. He glanced down at where my trembling fist clutched the sword hilt and raised his eyebrows. I had to look away.
“So, what’s the plan now, sword-bearer?” he asked. “I mean, I’m guessing you were sneaking off to somewhere, not just running away…”
I clea
red my throat and launched into a carefully edited account of my visit to Mr Leech at the nexus/bookshop the day before, finishing with, “He’s the only person – being – I’ve met since all this started who really seems to understand what’s going on and isn’t trying to kill me. I think he knows a lot more than he had a chance to tell yesterday.”
“Then why are we still sitting here?” Jack surged up off the sofa so quickly that Hikaru and Rachel slid together. They pushed apart hastily, with mutual expressions of discomfort. After everything that we’d been through together it was odd to think that those two were actually still virtual strangers. Hikaru scrambled to his feet and, after a moment’s hesitation, offered Rachel his hand. She stared at it with narrowed eyes, then deliberately stood up on her own, without his help. She brushed herself off as if she thought he might have left fox hairs on her or something. Hikaru sighed, slumping a little.
Oh, wonderful. More drama.
We’d all started for the front hall when my father’s throat-clearing stopped us. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Jack and I exchanged wary looks. Parents pretending to be stupid was usually a sign that they were about to try to be – eugh – funny.
“Out, Mr Yamato,” Rachel said patiently, falling for it. “We’re going to walk to this nexus place. Aren’t you coming?”
Dad got out of the armchair and stretched fluidly. “Yes, but I’m not walking it. I assume you’re up for a ride in the Dad Taxi?”
I might be a barely functioning, emotionally shattered control freak, but I wasn’t an idiot. The next word out of my mouth was “Shotgun!”
The others groaned.
CHAPTER FIVE
RETURN TO AVALON
If there was one advantage to two gods turning our city into a battleground, it was that the traffic was really light. Only a handful of brave or stupid travellers shared the road with us that morning, and the pavements were completely deserted. Everywhere I looked there were smashed and boarded-up windows, buildings with long black scorch marks that showed someone, or something, had tried to burn them. We drove past four or five abandoned cars, a couple of which had their doors still open as if the driver and passengers had fled without looking back. In several places the roads, pavements and walls were splashed with dark red stains. I really hoped those were from the blood-rain that the news had mentioned, but when I saw a distinctive pattern – handprints and drag marks – on one white-painted wall, it made that hope a lot more difficult to cling to.