A Tangle of Gold

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  She stopped. The rain fell. Gabe stared.

  ‘About what?’ he said eventually.

  ‘About . . . your ears. How you should grow your hair long to cover . . .’ Her words dwindled. ‘But you . . .’ She started again. ‘I didn’t know that would happen with the tractor!’

  A frown crossed Gabe’s face. He held out a hand as if to help her up, then withdrew it. He looked behind him, across the field.

  ‘Can we just do this thing for now?’ he said. Again, he offered his hand and this time she let him pull her to her feet.

  She stood beside him, feeling her own shrieks still falling from the air. The quiet floated back, then filled itself with smaller sounds: the agitated rush of melting snow; the quiet thoughts of an owl; all of it steeped in embarrassment and disapproval.

  ‘What do you need me to do?’ Keira asked.

  ‘Just shine the light.’ He pressed the flashlight into her hand, frowning briefly again, then crouched down by the first of the shoots.

  She stood above him. The circle of light hit the little plant, and she watched him take a gentle hold of it, examine it, then release it and stand up.

  He moved to the next one, did the same thing, and then the next.

  Water trickled so reprovingly she had to speak to cover the sound.

  ‘What is this? What are you growing here?’ she asked.

  He tore a leaf from a shoot and shuffled to the next one without speaking. She followed.

  ‘This is murlington,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s a bit like corn.’

  ‘I know. I’ve tried it. It’s good. You have to check this entire field?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  She looked across the endless rows.

  He moved along the plants and she shone the light at each. Now and then he pulled out a leaf or two, but mostly not.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ she asked.

  Again he was silent, concentrating.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ she repeated, and he glanced up.

  ‘Sorry. Here. Come closer and I’ll show you. This tiny patch of white? It’s a form of mould that can get these little guys after a rapid thaw like this. I need to get it off fast before it spreads.’

  Keira raised her eyes again. Her gaze ran along the rows. She focused.

  ‘I can see it,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, you have to go right up close.’ He shifted to the next shoot, this time on his knees.

  ‘No. There.’

  He glanced up. She was pointing about eight shoots along from where he knelt.

  ‘I have to check these first. Can’t skip any.’

  She shook her head. ‘The next seven are fine. But that one there’s got the white dots.’ She held his gaze. ‘Check all eight if you like.’

  He did. At the eighth, he tore away a single, tiny leaf.

  ‘You were right.’ He straightened and studied her face. ‘See any more?’

  She looked away from him, running the light along the shoots. ‘There,’ she said, pointing. ‘Five along.’

  Again he tested each one, and this time when he reached the fifth, he tore away the mould and stood up grinning.

  ‘Where’s the next?’

  Keira switched off the flashlight.

  ‘Seriously?’ Gabe said to this.

  ‘Better without it.’ She scanned the plants again. ‘My night vision kicks in. There.’

  Now he headed straight to her choice, plucked away the mouldy parts and stood again, waiting.

  ‘No more in this row. Or the next. But the third row’s got about five.’

  Row by row, she pointed out infected shoots. The rain fell softly, the wind drifted around them.

  Once they’d reached the final shoot in the field, they both stood back while she scanned the field once more.

  ‘We’re done,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  They walked back to the house through the darkness. Inside, he switched on the light, hung up his raincoat and turned to her.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That was . . .’

  She was pulling off her hat. Water splattered the floor.

  ‘Your lips are blue,’ he said. ‘You’re freezing. Go take a shower and then we can talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Well, about the stuff you were shouting out there.’

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten that.’

  He laughed.

  *

  When she came out to the kitchen, he was standing at the stove, his back to her.

  Some kind of dark chocolate dessert sat in bowls on the table.

  ‘How do you do that so fast?’

  ‘The molten chocolate pudding? I don’t know.’ He half-shrugged, frowning. ‘It’s a Farms thing. We learn to bake before we can walk, practically. Even Nikki and Shelby can do it if they have to. They’re just not into it. Elliot’s the best of us but Cody’s a close second. You should try his cherry and chocolate profiteroles with orchid vanilla. Now those are a work of art.’

  He turned around, a mug of hot chocolate in each hand, and stopped.

  Keira was wearing a t-shirt and trackpants. Her arms and neck were covered in bruises. Gabe’s frown deepened in confusion at this. Then his eyes widened.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you were out in that Blue?’

  She bit her lower lip.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know. The whole time.’

  ‘The whole time? Keira. That was the longest Sky Blue I’ve ever seen. Where were you? Downtown?’

  ‘I don’t know where I was. It sort of chased me halfway here. Then it stopped and I walked the rest of the way.’

  ‘Wait, you walked from downtown all the way here? You’re pulling my leg. Nobody walks a distance like that. That’s what wheels are for. I thought someone must have given you a ride! And you did that after you’d been out in a Blue?!’

  He set the mugs on the table, pulled out a chair and sat facing her, his frown almost a scowl.

  ‘Who would have given me a ride?’ she asked.

  His eyes ran over her bruises again and he shook his head slowly. ‘You’re right. We’re being too tough on you. I guess we don’t like Edgians, for one thing. Or Hostiles. But it’s more about Elliot—we sort of blame you for him. Cause it was your mother who betrayed his Uncle Jon, so Jon ended up dead, and it was her that caused his dad to go missing all that time. So, you being a Hostile . . .’

  ‘But I keep telling you, I’m not a Hostile. I’m not exactly a fan of the Royals, but I swear I’m not a Hostile.’

  ‘Well.’ He sipped from his hot chocolate, his eyes on her face.

  ‘And I helped save Elliot. I’m using my contacts to hide Elliot.’

  Gabe set his mug back on the table.

  ‘They’re Hostile contacts.’ He shrugged. ‘You can’t win. Have some pudding.’

  She twirled the spoon in a circle on the table. They both watched it spin and then slow.

  ‘It’s true it’s not your fault, what your mother did,’ Gabe said. ‘I’ll talk to the others.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘No. I will. But you know, when they do their Soph! Soph! thing, they’re just mucking around. It’s funny to them.’

  Keira picked up the spoon and used it to trace the scratches on the table. ‘When that Blue was chasing me, I saw the word fun rolling past my eyes. It was a sort of hallucination, I guess. Another word came after it, only I couldn’t tell what it was. Now I think I know. It was malice.’

  Gabe raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah, you’re right, and that’s a good way to put it. To be honest, I’ve never found it all that much of a hoot, the whole Soph! thing. Listen, though, y’know, it’s also your face?’

  She dropped the spoon so it clattered. Heat burst across her cheeks. She pressed her hands to them.

  ‘Not your skin! You can’t even see the break-outs most of the time, under all that makeup.’ He sounded annoyed. ‘I mean the expressi
ons on your face. You know, your face never stops talking, even when you’re silent? And it’s got a heck of a lot to say about how much better you are than all of us. You think we’re a bunch of hicks and you think our accents and our school and our clothes are all one big joke. I don’t mind all that so much myself—this province is always getting trashed. For me, it’s what your face says about farming itself—that’s what really gets me.’

  Keira stared down at the surface of the pudding. It rose up in a perfect mound, two fine cracks running down the middle. Beneath those cracks she caught glimpses of a glossy chocolate liquid.

  ‘I’m only joking when I go on about farming,’ she said. She tried to make her face not say a word.

  ‘Sure, I get that.’ Gabe dug into his own pudding. ‘Please. Eat.’ He spoke through a mouthful. ‘It’s kinda dumb, but the thing about me is, I’m all about the crops. It’s like land and dirt and plants, well, they’re part of me. You know how a plant can grow tall, but its roots’ll likely go down even deeper than it’s tall? On account of, it’s looking for moisture and so forth?’

  Keira tried to look as if she did know that.

  ‘Well, they do. And it’s sort of the same with me. I’m tall—yeah, don’t act like that’s news. Your eyes measure me against doorways and ceilings all the time. Your eyes are always: good grief, the guy’s a tree! Whatever. That, I’m used to—but seems to me, I’ve got roots that stretch even deeper than my height. Cause I’m so tangled up with things that grow.’ He scooped out half the pudding, looked away and spoke again. ‘So when you make fun, well, it hurts.’ He looked at her again, then leaned down to scrape his bowl.

  Keira watched him. In her head she argued for a while, back and forth, about farming and taking yourself too seriously. Then she dropped the argument. She let her face show that she felt bad.

  Something occurred to her. ‘It’s spring out there,’ she said. ‘We had two weeks of winter and now an afternoon of spring. Isn’t that what you predicted?’

  Gabe drained his mug of chocolate in one go and set it down. ‘Ah, sometimes I get it right. Sometimes not. What’d I say would happen next? Summer? That’ll probably turn out wrong. People like to ask me anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘Make a fortune if I could do it all the time. Come on, for crying out loud, would you try the pudding? I made it special to cheer you up.’

  Keira blinked. She thought people only made food ‘to cheer you up’ in movies. Was he for real? She didn’t know whether she should give him a withering look, or smile and say thanks. So she did neither, she obeyed him and tried the pudding. Right away, she had to close her eyes. It was like the opposite of her scream. It was a melody rushing through her face and chest and down her spine, the harmony rising all the time. It caught her somewhere deep in the stomach, deep in the centre of her happiness. ‘Holy,’ she said, speaking Farms. ‘This is amazing.’

  ‘There’s some ointment might help those bruises,’ Gabe said, ‘top right-hand corner of the bathroom cabinet.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘Or maybe the bottom shelf. You have a look. Thanks for outside. Now, that was some amazing. Saved me hours of work, which I sure appreciate, cause I am beat. Heading up to bed.’

  He was pale, she saw abruptly. His eyes were so close to being shut they were mostly lash.

  ‘It’ll be good when your parents get back,’ she said. ‘I know you’re all tangled in farming and everything, but it’s kind of crazy you running this whole place on your own, as well as going to school.’

  Gabe ran the water in the sink, rinsing his plate and mug.

  He turned and looked at her. ‘You okay now?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Night then.’

  He stepped towards the kitchen door. Then he stopped. ‘Wait, why’d you keep running? When that Blue was after you, why not just curl up on the ground next to some building, say, and let them roll across you? Wouldn’t have hurt near so much.’

  Keira laughed. ‘I guess because I’m an idiot? I didn’t even think of doing that.’

  He regarded her through his half-closed eyes. ‘Not an idiot,’ he concluded. ‘Just not a quitter. Night.’ He left the room now, knocking on the wall once as he did, but a moment later he was back. ‘I wasn’t pointing out your skin that day,’ he said. ‘You were touching it like you were sad about it. I was telling you how you might fix it.’ A slow smile formed. ‘Hide my ears by growing my hair? I don’t see how anyone could grow enough hair to hide these guys,’ and, to Keira’s amazement, he tapped his ears with something like affection.

  13

  The next day was Saturday and Keira woke late from a dream in which she was a glass bottle. She was rolling around on the deck of a ship which was caught in an electrical storm.

  It took a few minutes for the room to stop rocking and lights to stop flashing.

  Outside her bedroom window, the sky was blue and the sun shone strongly on wet, sodden ground. Summer. So Gabe had been right.

  She went downstairs in her pjs. The kitchen was empty, but there was a note on the table, alongside a folded newspaper.

  Abel Baranski called. He wants us all to come to his place at noon. Don’t try to walk ☺ I’ll meet u here & give you a ride. Hope u feel better. Look at this.

  Beneath this was a wobbly arrow, pointing at the newspaper.

  Keira unfolded it and looked at the headline.

  TALKS COLLAPSE—PRINCESS KO FACING EXECUTION.

  The kitchen counter leapt right at Keira with outstretched, shoving hands. Or anyhow, that’s how it seemed.

  *

  Keira and Gabe were the last to arrive at the Baranski farmhouse.

  Petra led them into the living room where the others were already seated, pie plates on knees.

  ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Nikki said carefully, and the others gazed at Keira. So Gabe must have talked to them already. She was so embarrassed she felt like taking a plate of pie and mashing it into her own face.

  The adults smiled at her in their usual way which somehow made it worse.

  ‘Sit down,’ Abel said. ‘Sit!’ His words teetered between host-ly enthusiasm and impatience. He had a wild-eyed look, she thought, and those shadows under his eyes were droopy hammocks.

  The moment Keira and Gabe found chairs, Abel sprang to his feet and began: ‘Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to come out here at such short notice. Today I want you to meet . . .’

  ‘Well, now, that’s no trouble,’ the Sheriff mused. ‘It being a Saturday and all, this town can generally take care of itself, although that is setting aside the hijinks we had at the Templetons’ thing this morning. And you never can tell what’ll happen with Colour attacks these days. They’re that much more frequent, and more get-up-and-go than a greyhound.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Agent Kim volunteered, raising his pen from his sketchpad. ‘I’ve never seen a Sky Blue last as long as yesterday’s.’ He returned to sketching.

  Hector agreed. ‘They don’t cause any real damage, those Blues, just like messing with people. Speaking of which, there’s a rumour around that Sophy Epstein was out in it last night. I said, now that surely can’t be so! But Jimmy heard it too, didn’t you, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘People seemed convinced of it,’ he smiled.

  Everyone turned to Keira, who shrugged, so they all spoke at once: variations on ‘Why?!’ and a lot of talk about the bruises they could see now on her arms.

  Abel’s voice clambered up over the noise. ‘I don’t want to waste too much of your time,’ he called out stridently. ‘There’s someone I want you to—’

  There was a swooping sound. It was Agent Kim, ripping out a page of his sketchbook with a flourish.

  ‘Here,’ he said, holding up the page. ‘Anybody know what this is?’

  ‘Hang on,’ Abel began, but the others were leaning over each other to see. On the page was a simple black circle.

  ‘It’s a manhole cover,’ said Shelby.

  ‘A picture of that round silver tray there.’
Petra pointed to the sideboard.

  ‘It’s a face,’ Nikki offered. ‘You forgot to add features.’

  ‘A basketball hoop,’ said Gabe, ‘without a net.’

  ‘Hole in the ground,’ said Cody. ‘Lid of a jam jar. Top of a drinking glass.’

  ‘Frisbee!’ Petra shouted.

  ‘Pancake!’

  ‘Yoyo!’

  ‘Egg,’ said Shelby.

  The others looked at her. ‘What sort of chickens you got?’

  ‘A poached egg,’ she explained.

  ‘Holy,’ muttered Abel. Petra chuckled.

  Agent Kim spun the paper back around again and studied the circle himself.

  Agent Tovey spoke up. ‘It might be nothing,’ he said, and Abel sighed. ‘But both Kim and I have caught glimpses of this image in our dealings with the W.S.U. Just a plain circle. Keira, what’s with the ring?’

  This last question came like a punch leaping up from his mild tone. Keira flinched.

  ‘I’m just twisting it,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  Keira blinked. ‘A ring is a circle. The picture made me think of it.’

  ‘You should’ve shouted then,’ Shelby advised. ‘Like this: Ring!

  It might have been the right answer. You might’ve won.’

  Tovey was still looking at Keira. The others waited, bemused.

  ‘We don’t know the answer,’ the agent said eventually, turning back to the group. ‘We don’t know what the circle means.’

  ‘Well, anyhow,’ Abel said. ‘Like I said, there’s someone I want you to—’

  The Sheriff interrupted. ‘But you think it might mean something?’

  Tovey nodded. ‘Kim and I suspect it might be a symbol—a code of some kind—referring to a secret organisation. It’s becoming clear that there are links between the W.S.U. and one or more of the Hostile branches. Maybe the circle indicates that union?’

  Shelby frowned. ‘Then it’d be a U. For union.’

  ‘Or it indicates a new, more powerful Hostile group,’ Tovey said. ‘A supergroup: an alliance between several Hostile branches.’

  Abel cleared his throat, but Petra placed a hand on his arm.