by Sharon Sant
Sky handed him a water bottle. ‘Here, it isn’t much, but it might help.’
Elijah took it gratefully and sipped.
Xavier paced up and down, impatiently scanning the horizon. ‘The river’s rising fast now. And I can’t see anything in this direction for miles. We may have to change tack and risk heading back away from it.’
Elijah handed Sky the bottle, which she stowed in her backpack. He tried to stand up on his ankle, but immediately sank down, his head spinning again.
‘Let me look at that,’ Sky urged.
‘Just give me a minute. I can get up; I just need to get my balance right.’
Without warning, Sky pulled at his bootlace and slipped the knot, yanking off the boot in one deft movement. Elijah was too slow to stop her. Swollen skin puffed over his sock, but it wasn’t that which made Sky purse her lips and inhale sharply, followed by disgruntled murmurings from the others. Out of the boot flew a small, slim blue booklet, protected by a scrap of old cloth. Xavier stepped forward and snatched it from the spot where it had fallen. Everyone stared for a moment, struggling to comprehend.
‘What the…’ Xavier stood over Elijah gripping the book.
‘It’s not how it looks…’ Elijah began weakly.
‘THIS IS FOOD!’ Xavier bellowed. Struggling to contain his temper, he spoke in a harsh, low voice, loaded with seething resentment. ‘How long have you had these?’ He flicked through the pages, ‘There must be two months’ worth here!’
Elijah couldn’t answer. Nothing he could say could possibly redeem him now. The tokens had been with him since the day he was mugged, hidden in his boot, and it wouldn’t take the others long to work that out
‘We should have left you in that alleyway,’ Xavier spat.
Xavier’s frustrated anger and the scornful looks of the others couldn’t hurt him now. Nothing anyone said made him feel sicker than the sense of betrayal in her eyes, as Sky stared at him in disbelief. He felt like a worm; he wished one of them would step him into the dirt and make him disappear.
‘All those months… I don’t understand. You were stealing food, we were hungry all the time… why, Elijah? And I stood up for you every time you messed up.’ Sky turned her face away as her voice faltered. ‘I thought you’d changed.’
‘It’s not like you think...’ the effort to speak was almost more than he could physically bear, but he needed to make them understand, to at least make Sky understand. ‘At first I thought you might send me away and I needed them, then time went on and it got harder to tell you… you don’t know what it’s like to be alone…’ Despite everything, he couldn’t help his voice becoming harder as bitterness seeped through.
Jimmy, whom Elijah had never seen angry before, fixed him with a blazing look. ‘How can you say that? Why do you think we wander the country? Why do you think we run? We’ve all been alone. ALL OF US! Don’t you DARE feel sorry for yourself!’
Rosa glanced curiously at Xavier as Jimmy spoke.
Elijah fell back onto his elbows and turned his face to the sky. He was too tired and weak to argue any more. ‘You’d better just go then.’ It was hard to believe that, less than twenty-four hours ago, life had seemed so promising.
‘Fine.’ Xavier hurled the booklet at him. Elijah winced as it scuffed his face and then fell onto the waterlogged ground.
‘You can’t just leave him.’ Rosa grabbed Xavier’s arm, ‘I know he’s been a pain, but look at him…’
‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ Sky pleaded.
‘Yeah, some more than most. He’s a jinx – and a liar.’ Xavier could barely disguise his contempt.
‘He’s not the only one though is he?’ Rosa replied in a significant tone.
Xavier wrenched his arm from her grasp and then strode off along the wild river bank. Jimmy and Rowan wavered uncertainly before following him. Rosa and Sky started after them, shouting in argument, whilst Elijah sat up, unable to stay in one position for long, his leg at an unnatural angle, hair gripped in his hands.
They had barely gone a few metres when Elijah looked up to see Sky hobbling back to him.
‘Go back, Sky. Just go,’ he called in a dull tone. He couldn’t bear the guilt of having her care for him. He was better off alone. He wished the CMO would come and take him now. He wished he was dead. He wished anything other than this.
‘No, wait, I…’ Sky’s breathless reply was cut short by a muffled, squelching series of thuds. Her eyes widened and she let out a shrill scream as the ground moved away from under her feet. The mud of the bank was collapsing under the enormous pressure of the constant rain and Sky slid away, as if in slow motion, down towards the swollen river.
Elijah looked on in numb disbelief. There was no time to consider, only to react. Unable to walk; he did the only thing he could. He dragged himself to the edge of the incline and looked for her. He paused for the tiniest time, then, unable to see her, hurled himself down the grass verge. His ankle caught with every revolution, sending shockwaves of pain through his leg. He rolled violently, straight into the gritty water; the unexpected cold sucking his breath. Disorientated, he spluttered to the surface. As his face emerged from the murk, he spotted Sky being dragged below the water line, a short way off.
He cast around for something to anchor them and fixed on a sturdy-looking tree root, protruding into the water. His injured leg throbbing sickeningly, he swam for it. In the periphery of his awareness, Elijah could hear frantic shouts and screams, but they didn’t concern him. He concentrated on beating the swell. The branch came up rapidly to meet him and he thudded into it, wrapping his arm around tightly. The water pounded at him, eager to sweep him away. Sky was within reaching distance, only just keeping her face above the water. She saw his outstretched hand and threw herself in his direction. Their fingertips touched, he locked onto hers and wrenched her towards him. With every ounce of strength he had left, he pulled her, slowly and painfully, to safety.
When Elijah could see that Sky was clinging onto the same tree root, coughing and breathless, he knew she was safe. The adrenalin subsided, sapping the last gasp of strength from his body. He felt the weight of the water envelop him, irresistibly pulling him onwards. It would be easy to let go.
The promise of imminent death was not as he had expected. There were no scenes of triumph to flash before his eyes, no images of loved ones to make him yearn for life, only exhaustion and defeat. Elijah’s grip slackened on the root. He let the surging water tug him free, sucking him inexorably away.
Ten: Xavier’s Secret
There was darkness and quiet and, for a while, nothing else. No pain, no misery, just peaceful oblivion. Then, an annoying buzz began to fill his head; confused sounds and indistinct voices; a sudden weight on his chest and a mouth full of grit. Elijah returned to the world with his face buried in the coarse grass and filthy water gushing from his mouth. His head was full of flashing lights; his lungs ready to implode. Just when he thought his skull would split with the force of his vomiting, it stopped and he gasped for air; a great rasping and desperate breath that seemed to last for minutes. It was the breath of someone who had no choice but to breathe, because he was alive.
He lay with the smell of wet grass in his nostrils, and tiny droplets of water licking his face as gravity drew them to the ground. Slowly, as if piecing together a vaguely remembered dream, it all fell into place. He had chosen death, had gone to meet it, yet here he was, very much alive. The nauseating throb that radiated from his ankle and the cold ache in his bones confirmed that.
There was a tremulous hand on his head, and then he heard a sobbing whisper, so close to his ear that he could feel the breath tickle him.
‘Please, please… be alright.’
‘Sky?’ Elijah murmured, almost sighed. ‘I’ve got to tell you something.’ His eyes were still closed, the faintest smile at the corners of his mouth.
‘What?’
‘Your predictions are rubbish.’
There was a strange, st
rangled, half-laugh, half-sob from Sky as she lay down beside him and put her face close to his. Elijah could smell the river silt in her hair, an odd metallic tang. His eyes opened and he found himself gazing into hers, blue as her name on a summer’s day.
‘See!’ Xavier said. ‘I told you he was a jinx!’
With enormous effort, Elijah rolled onto his side to see Xavier, bent double with his hands resting on his knees, panting and dripping wet.
‘Thanks,’ Elijah croaked.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Xavier replied curtly. ‘This doesn’t change anything, though.’
Elijah nodded, almost imperceptibly, and his head lolled onto the ground again. What Xavier had said wasn’t true, though. It had changed everything.
The group moved on slowly. The object now was to find shelter and food; all thoughts of pursuit had faded into insignificance. Jimmy and Xavier supported Elijah, whose ankle was now so alarmingly swollen that he could no longer get his boot back on and was unable to bear any weight on it. Not that he had the strength to walk anyway. It was clear that he was fading fast. Xavier and Jimmy exchanged worried looks as he rambled incoherently, sometimes almost blacking out, so that they would have to drag him along. Only the pain from his ankle hitting a tussock of grass seemed to bring him round for a brief spell of lucidity every now and then, mostly characterised by an impressive array of swearwords.
Dusk grasped the land with inky fingers, making the harsh terrain even more difficult to negotiate. They hadn’t seen any shelter, not even trees, for miles now, and Rosa suggested that they might as well stop where they were and sleep. They were all exhausted to the point of collapse. But Xavier resolutely bullied them on, and his fortitude was rewarded. Barely distinct in the failing light, he spotted a small timber and stone building.
‘Stay here. I’ll go and check it out.’
The group collectively sank to the ground, Elijah’s eyes rolling uncontrollably as Sky held him. She threw a frightened glance at Rosa.
‘I know,’ Rosa agreed in a whisper, ‘he looks bad.’
Sky was unable to settle; shivering in her still-damp clothes, she kept watch over Elijah. Rowan, Rosa and Jimmy had started to doze when Xavier returned. He woke them.
‘It’s a stable,’ he said. ‘Looks safe enough.’ He indicated Elijah. ‘It will have to do, anyway. We certainly won’t get him any further tonight.’
The stable was damp and inhabited by a skeletal, disgruntled looking horse which snorted indignantly at their arrival but, after a fuss from Rosa, decided they were welcome after all. Two of the three stalls were unoccupied and obviously unused; Xavier noted that, although they were cleanly swept, there was no straw down. On a bracket hung a wire basket with a supply of clean dry straw, which Xavier spread around in one of the vacant stalls for them to lie on. It pricked them through their clothes but smelt inviting and safe. Rowan fell asleep almost immediately, as did Sky, after finally agreeing to entrust Elijah’s care to Jimmy. Jimmy did his best to make Elijah comfortable, but his limp form failed to respond to any of Jimmy’s anxious manoeuvrings.
Xavier, who seemed to have taken on superhuman qualities, was adamant that he was going out to search for food. ‘Did you pick up those tokens?’
Rosa nodded and reached into her backpack, extracting the booklet that had been the cause of so much misery. She tossed it to him.
‘Thanks.’
‘Where are you going to use them?’
‘If there’s a stable here with a live horse, then there has to be a house nearby,’ Xavier reasoned. ‘I’m going to find it and see if I can get them to exchange these for something. It’s a risk, but we don’t have any choice.’
‘You’re surely not going now?’
Xavier nodded, his square jaw set with grim determination. Rosa was too tired to argue.
A couple of hours later, Xavier stumbled in with a small cloth bag. Shaking Rosa gently, he showed her the bag as she rubbed her eyes, struggling to wake.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘Quite a walk actually - there’s a cottage. It’s in a bit of a hollow, which is why we never saw it before. They were nice people. Only had eggs to spare, though.’
‘But,’ Rosa began groggily, ‘we can’t start a fire in here…’
‘I know. We’ll have to eat them raw.’ Xavier steeled himself, at the same time pulling a brown, slightly feathery, hen’s egg out of the sack. Tipping his head right back he cracked it into his open mouth and swallowed it in one, shuddering. Rosa looked horrified. ‘This is not the time to be squeamish,’ Xavier scolded.
‘Didn’t they ask you any questions?’ Rosa asked as she accepted an egg from Xavier and held it as though he had given her a hand grenade.
‘Yeah. I felt a bad about lying to them really. They are a bit too trusting. Anyone else would have robbed them blind. They asked where we were staying. I was sort of straight with them. I told them I was with a group of soldiers on exercises and we got separated from the others, so we were sheltering in the stable, just for tonight, and we’d move on in the morning. Just in case they came noseying, really.’
‘I thought you said they were nice.’
‘That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t report a gang of kids hiding out in their stable, though, does it?’
‘We don’t really look like soldiers.’ Rosa forced an ironic laugh.
‘No,’ Xavier agreed, ‘but hopefully I was convincing enough that they won’t come to check. It’s quite interesting that they believed me so readily – don’t you think? Puts a new slant on what Jimmy told us about the CMO.’
‘Or perhaps they thought you were seventeen.’
‘Perhaps.’ Xavier shrugged. ‘Anyway, I told them the horse was ok with us. That seemed to settle it really.’ He glanced over at Elijah, who was shivering in his sleeping bag, his eyes moving rapidly under their lids. ‘Give me a hand to get one of these inside him. He’s not going to last otherwise.’
Rosa gently pulled Elijah’s head onto her knees and tipped it back without resistance. She pinched his nose while Xavier cracked an egg and poured it into his gaping mouth, stroking his throat like he was giving a dog pills. Elijah gagged and it dribbled back out, the yolk running down his chin.
‘We’ll just have to try and keep him hydrated, it’s the best we can do for now.’ Xavier grimaced. ‘His breath stinks. We’ll wake the others. They need to eat sooner rather than later. Plenty of time for sleep afterwards.’
As dawn broke, Sky woke shivering slightly. Stretching, she leaned over to check on Elijah. As she felt his damp forehead gently to gauge his temperature, his eyes snapped open, staring wildly, seemingly unable to focus. He was shivering violently, and his clothes were far too wet to be just the river water. Closing his eyes again, he mumbled incomprehensibly, jerking and trembling with clenched teeth.
‘Rosa. Rosa, wake up!’
Rosa grumbled.
‘Wake up, please,’ Sky repeated urgently.
Rosa pushed herself up out of the sleeping bag.
‘Look at him.’ Sky nodded her head at Elijah.
Rosa leaned over and nudged Xavier. He bolted upright.
‘What?’
‘I think Elijah needs a doctor,’ Rosa said.
Xavier crawled over and peeled back one of Elijah’s eyelids. ‘Pupils aren’t responding.’ He felt at his face and groaned. ‘I think you’re right.’
‘Xavier, you have to get your dad.’
‘Dad?’ Sky looked suddenly dazed.
‘I can’t go to my dad. We’ll have to take him somewhere else.’
‘Why not?’ Rosa snapped.
Xavier hesitated. ‘It’s complicated… long story, you know we don’t get on.’
‘Look at him, there isn’t time to find someone else, you idiot. Even if we did have time, who else could we trust? You have to see your dad. This isn’t a game anymore, Xavier. This is life or death.’
‘It’s not like that! I left home because... you wouldn’t understa
nd and I can see why. But it’s none of your business.’
‘It is now,’ Rosa hissed. ‘If you don’t get him I will!’ She glared at him in challenge. Xavier returned the stare but, for once, he was beaten.
He glanced at Elijah. ‘Ok. What are we going to do with him?’ he questioned, inclining his head towards Elijah’s prone form. ‘He’s not fit to move and we’re not fit to carry him. We can’t stay here, that would be pushing our luck with the people at the house.’
‘Some of us can stay here; the stronger ones can run to get help,’ Rosa suggested.
‘Take too long.’
Rosa chewed her nails, deep in thought. Then, her gaze wandered over to the other end of the stable. Xavier followed her line of vision.
‘No way!
‘Why not?’ Rosa demanded. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘For one – I can’t ride. And two – how are we going to explain the horse’s absence if the owners come down later?’
‘Well,’ said Rosa firmly. ‘Your parents’ place isn’t that far. You’ll just have to be quick, won’t you?’
Eleven: Going Home
‘I really don’t like this,’ Xavier repeated for the third time as Rosa led the moulting chestnut horse from the stable. It had taken a frantic hour for them to figure out how to saddle it; the straps were so much more complicated than they looked and the horse stamped menacingly when they got it wrong. Sky complained about the delay, pacing up and down and wringing her hands, which made Rosa lose her temper. Jimmy stayed close to Elijah, watching as he sank further into his fever, his breathing growing ever more shallow and irregular, while Rowan stood sentry closer to the house in case anyone came looking.
‘There’s no other way,’ Rosa insisted. ‘If the owners come down… I’ll think of something. It’s not like we won’t bring the nag back. Just GO!’ She gave Xavier a shove towards the hostile looking creature.
‘If Elijah doesn’t die, I’m going to kill him for this!’ he complained.