Outcasts

by Claire McFall

  about it.”

  “What’s weird about that?”

  “Because wraiths don’t think!” Susanna burst out. “They’re mindless, savage things. There’s nothing left in them of the people they used to be.”

  “Are you sure?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Absolutely. That’s why I can’t explain it.”

  “So…” Jack lifted his arm from her side and she imagined him shoving his hand through his hair, angrily grabbing a handful. He did that a lot. “So, you’re saying it’s impossible.”

  Susanna nodded. It was dark still, but now that her eyes had adjusted, she thought he’d probably see her.

  “There must be a way!” Jack insisted. “Dylan did it – on her own.”

  Susanna hunched her shoulders, feeling defensive now herself. Was she just imagining the accusation in Jack’s tone? They didn’t talk much about Dylan and Tristan – what would be the point? But the thought of them was always there, hovering in the air between them. The pair were, after all, the reason they were in this mess.

  No, Susanna reflected. They’re the reason I got us into this mess.

  And, unfortunately, there hadn’t been time to ask Dylan just how she’d managed to traverse the true wasteland, all alone.

  “Well, I’m not Dylan,” she said quietly.

  “No, you’re not,” Jack snapped back, and Susanna huddled over a little more. There was nowhere on the tiny sofa to get away from him, from the truth of his words. Especially not when he squeezed her back against him. “You’re a ferryman,” he reminded her. “You can do all kinds of stuff that she can’t.”

  Susanna blinked, completely taken aback.

  “Was that… was that a compliment?”

  “Don’t get used to it,” Jack told her darkly, and she grinned. “But what I’m saying is,” another squeeze, “you can do it.”

  “You mean we can do it?” she replied.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said.

  They didn’t say anything more for a long while, simply lying and resting. Waiting. At one point, Jack got up, climbing awkwardly over Susanna, to open the curtains.

  “I want to watch the sun come up,” he said, before lying back down beside her.

  Eventually, by such infinitesimal degrees that at first it was hard to notice, the sky began to lighten. The wraiths became distinguishable from the night sky, sinuous, undulating blobs of black against a background that started at burnt umber and grew to flaming orange as the red-hot coal that was the sun nudged into the sky.

  The noise outside gradually quieted as most – but not all – of the circling creatures outside slunk off to pursue other prey. It was as safe as it was going to get.

  Susanna lifted herself up and swung her legs down until she was perched on the edge of the sofa. Jack sat up beside her then stood, stretching. He didn’t do his normal thing of walking to the door and opening it, sticking his head outside as far as was safe to taunt the remaining wraiths. Instead, he crossed to the smaller opening of the window, staying far back enough to be out of sight of the wraiths who still bumped the walls and roof on occasion, as if afraid Jack and Susanna might forget they were there.

  “You ready?” Jack asked.

  No, Susanna thought. She was far from ready. But that didn’t really matter, because she was never going to be ready. Honestly, it would have been better if they’d just tried to make the journey straight away. Then, Jack had been her responsibility, had been a source of terrible guilt, but he’d also been bad-tempered and volatile. Now, he was her friend. More than that. She knew him better than she’d ever known anyone – even Tristan. She cared about him, and she knew he cared about her.

  Losing him now was a very different prospect.

  A lump lodged in her throat and she realised she was on the verge of tears.

  “You all right?” Jack asked, catching sight of her expression. “You scared?”

  “No.” She shook her head, then hiccupped a laugh. “Well, yes. I just…” She took a step forward, grabbed Jack by the hand. “Hang on to me, OK? I’m not going to lose you.”

  Jack nodded, no smart comeback for once. He gave her fingers a tight squeeze.

  “And when we’re out there,” Susanna said, thinking of all the times she’d been caught in the wasteland after the sun had sunk, all the times she’d dragged souls back from the edge of danger, “don’t look at the wraiths. Pretend they don’t exist. You can’t fight them, it’s stupid to try. So just… ignore them and focus on me. On where we’re going, or on your feet if you have to.”

  “Pretend they’re like my stepdad, then,” Jack said dryly. “No problem, I’ve had lots of practise at that.”

  Susanna laughed, Jack’s wry humour breaking the tension that had her shoulder muscles in knots, her legs feeling weak and not her own. She sobered quickly, though, and moved to the door, Jack close as a shadow behind her, his hand still in hers.

  Susanna paused with her other hand on the doorknob, not looking at him.

  “I’m going to get you through this, Jack,” she whispered. “I swear.”

  And then she flung open the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Tristan, are you nearly done?” It was time to just ask outright, because sighing and huffing and twirling around and around in her chair hadn’t managed to convey to Tristan that Dylan was bored out of her mind.

  “Eh… yeah.” Tristan didn’t so much as take his eyes off the computer screen, his finger on the mouse click, click, clicking as he scrolled through the website he was looking at.

  “Seriously, I think Mrs Lambert is going to kick us out of the library in a minute. Even the cleaners have gone home!” Dylan wheeled her chair over to him. “What are you looking at, anyway?”

  They’d been in the library since the end of lunchtime, their History teacher having booked the banks of computers for their afternoon double period to give the class research time for a project on the slave trade in eighteenth-century America. It was now close to 5 p.m., and Dylan was itching to escape the funny smell that seemed to linger in the place, and the oppressive atmosphere created by Mrs Lambert, the world’s least friendly children’s librarian (she might have been responsible for the smell as well).

  Plus, ugly black clouds had been rolling across the sky for the last fifteen minutes, and if they didn’t leave soon, they were going to get drenched on the way home.

  “Just the news,” Tristan murmured. He clicked on another link.

  “The news? Tristan, we can do that at home! You know, where there’s a sofa and a television and a fridge – and where it doesn’t smell weird!” Dylan huffed. “You could have used my laptop. Or your phone. Or my dad’s tablet.”

  “Sorry,” Tristan said, not sounding particularly sorry at all. “I’m nearly done though, I swear.” He turned to smile apologetically at Dylan as the next page loaded. Dylan returned it half-heartedly then looked at the screen, eyes flickering over the headline and—

  “What the hell is that?!”

  The image was almost unidentifiable. Dylan could make out four hooved feet, but beyond that, it was just a hunk of shredded skin, hair and muscle. It was repulsive and she leaned away from it as her eyes lifted to read the headline:

  HORSE ATTACK

  LEAVES FARMER

  BAMBOOZLED

  “Well, it was a horse,” Tristan answered.

  Dylan had guessed as much from the shouty title, but apart from the feet, she couldn’t make the rest of the bloodied jumble morph into legs, a body, a head.

  “What happened to it?” Dylan could have read the article, but she was having a hard time pulling her eyes away from the picture, grisly as it was.

  “That’s the thing,” Tristan said, “nobody knows. Something attacked it.”

  It was impossible to miss Tristan’s emphasis, or his choice of words. Dylan looked at him, then back at the picture. No, she thought. It couldn’t be. Not another one.

  But her denials didn’t stop i
cy fear from clawing its way into her insides.

  “Where did it happen?” she choked out.

  “Here.” Tristan already had a tab up with Google Maps activated. He pointed towards the little red dot in the centre. “It’s just outside a place called Kilsyth.”

  “Kilsyth?” The cold that had taken up residence in Dylan’s stomach melted away as she took in the location and rational thought pushed back against the panic. Kilsyth was a small place near Cumbernauld, it was nowhere near the train tunnel where she’d had her accident – or Denny, where Jack died. She blew out a relieved breath. “It couldn’t have been a… you know,” Mrs Lambert was too far away to hear her, and there was no one else in the library, but still, she didn’t want to say the word out loud, “then, could it? It’s too far away – from either of the holes.”

  And anyway, they’d closed both of those tears. There was no way a wraith could find its way through the veil that separated the world of the living from the wasteland.

  “That’s true,” Tristan said softly. He clicked away from the map, the poor dead horse popping back up onto the screen.

  “It must just have been a wild animal, or a pack of dogs, maybe. There are sickos who train pit bulls and mastiffs and dogs like that to attack. That makes more sense, Tristan. It does,” Dylan pushed, because while he was nodding along with her, something on his face said that he didn’t believe it. “Let’s go,” she said. If nothing else, she wanted to get away from the picture, the sad remains of what must have been a terrifying attack for the horse. She felt nauseated thinking about how much it must have panicked, tried to get away… “Come on,” she pleaded. “It’s getting late.”

  Tristan didn’t argue and made quick work of logging off the computer. He was silent as they left the library, silent as they walked through the deserted school building, and silent as they reached the foyer where the lights in the office were all switched off, the place eerily empty.

  It wasn’t until they stepped out of the front entrance and paused under the overhang to stare out at the pounding raindrops now slanting down from a leaden sky that he spoke. He turned to Dylan, an impish smile on his face. “Oops,” he offered.

  It was a long walk home. The rain didn’t let up and so, even though it wasn’t yet 5.30 p.m., it was very nearly dark by the time they arrived home. Or at least, home for now. A big ugly ‘For Sale’ sign stuck out from Dylan’s bedroom window. James insisted that the family needed a new house – an actual house – for their new beginning. Still, until the place sold, they had to troop up the stairs of the tenement building, stepping over the landing where Tristan had collapsed, bleeding heavily from wounds that opened each and every time he and Dylan were separated by any great distance. Though the blood both he and Dylan shed that day had long since been scrubbed away, the spot made Dylan give a little shudder every time she passed it. It was just one of many reasons why she was excited to move.

  Neither of her parents were in the flat when they entered. That didn’t surprise Dylan. Even though they were married now, they were still ‘dating’, disappearing off to the pictures or a show, out to a fancy dinner or down to one of the many pubs in the West End for drinks. Dylan wasn’t bothered in the slightest – she loved that they were out having fun together, as well as the extra privacy their outings gave her and Tristan. Like now.

  “I think I need to change everything down to my underwear!” she complained as she shimmied out of her waterproof jacket. “I’m wet through!”

  “I’m sorry,” Tristan replied ruefully. His much newer jacket had fared better against the rain than Dylan’s had, but she could see huge dark patches on his school trousers where the rain had soaked the material. He toed off his shoes and gave her a wicked grin. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  And he sauntered right into her bedroom.

  Dylan stared after him for a brief moment, but when music started drifting through her open doorway she caught up with herself and frantically tugged at her boots, trying to get them off. They resisted, eventually taking her socks with them when they finally slid free, but the things were wringing anyway so she left them on the hall floor and darted barefoot to her room.

  Tristan was already parked on her bed, but what gave her pause was the thing he held in his hands. A large pad of paper, the blue front cover decorated with intricate black swirls. His drawing book, the one he’d never, ever let her peek at.

  It had driven Dylan near-demented wondering what he was sketching when he’d disappear off to a corner with the thing tucked tight in his grasp, but he’d been shy about her seeing it and, although she’d had a few horribly tempting opportunities, she’d never looked. She wanted to; she really, really wanted to. But she hadn’t.

  Tristan had never had anything that was his before, had never had any privacy. It was a small gift, but it was something that Dylan could offer him.

  But ohh, how it had niggled at her. The pad sitting on her top bookshelf (the one she’d given over to Tristan because she couldn’t reach it without standing on a chair anyway), waving at her day after day. Taunting her, tempting her.

  Art was a recent discovery for Tristan. Dylan didn’t take it at school – she couldn’t draw. Or paint. And she’d dropped it as soon as she could – but Tristan had expressed an interest so Dylan had bought him some basic art equipment for Christmas. He’d taken to it like a duck to water… or so it seemed. As she’d never seen any of his drawings, Dylan had no idea if he was any good, but he enjoyed it, and that was all that mattered.

  She was curious, though.

  He tapped his fingers once, twice against the spiral binding running down the spine, before holding it out to her. “Here,” he said. “Your reward.”

  “Seriously?” Dylan raised her eyebrows in mock astonishment, but in truth she was surprised. “You’re going to let me see?”

  “I am.”

  Not giving him an opportunity to change his mind, Dylan ignored the cold dampness of her clothes and sat down on the bed beside him. Taking the pad carefully, she flipped the cover over to reveal the first drawing.

  Her own face stared back up at her. Her eyes dominated the image, looking out from the page beneath sweeping eyebrows. Her lips were quirked up in a half-smile that made her look teasing, secretive. And pretty. In the picture, she looked pretty.

  Glancing up, she saw Tristan was watching her carefully. It was hard to keep her face impassive under his scrutiny but she tried, working to keep her embarrassment in check and off her cheeks.

  Slightly clumsy fingers swept the picture away to reveal the next sketch. This one was charcoal, a side-on view of her standing staring at something off the page. Her hair was blowing out behind her in long, sinuous waves.

  Another page. Another picture. Dylan in the wheelchair, her face clouded over with frustration as she fumbled with her cast. The lines of the wheelchair were slightly off, the perspective not quite right, but the mulish look on her face Dylan certainly recognised.

  The next drawing wasn’t of her. It was her parents, sitting on their ageing sofa. Joan was looking ahead of her – probably at the television – and James was looking at Joan. The expression on his face was… Well, it was just as Dylan had seen it so many times before when she’d noticed the same thing. Longing, loving. Hopeful. Tristan had captured it perfectly.

  The next sketch wasn’t a picture as such, but six rough pencil sketches of—

  “Is that my ear?” Dylan asked, tilting her head in confusion. She didn’t necessarily recognise it as her ear, per se – an ear was an ear, wasn’t it – but that was her little daisy earring.

  “Uhm, yeah.” Tristan reached over to take the pad back from her, but Dylan twisted to keep it out of his reach.

  “Hold on,” she said. “I haven’t finished.”

  She flicked another page over and saw herself, laughing. Her eyes were scrunched up and her chin was tucked in a way that wasn’t all that attractive, but Dylan smiled anyway. There was joy in the picture,
it radiated out at her.

  “Tristan, these are really good,” she said quietly, realising that she hadn’t said anything bar the ear comment. If it had been her in Tristan’s place, she’d be wriggling like she had ants in her pants, wondering what he thought. “I mean, they’re really, really good. They’re so lifelike.” The next page was blank, the start of drawings still to come, so she flicked back through the ones she’d seen. “How did you get the details so accurate? You can’t have seen any of these for more than a moment!”

  “I don’t know.” Tristan shrugged. He reached again for the pad and this time she let him take it. “I just saw something I liked and then, later, when I was drawing, sketched out what I remembered.”

  “You’re very observant, then,” Dylan commented.

  “I had a lot of practice,” he reminded her. “At night, in the wasteland, there wasn’t a lot to do but sit and stare.”

  “True,” Dylan said softly. She didn’t like thinking about the long years Tristan had spent ferrying soul after soul, trapped in a never-ending cycle. No, not never-ending, she told herself. He was here now, with her. He’d escaped that life.

  She watched as he flipped back to the first picture. The one of just her face, gazing up at them both.

  “Why now?” she asked quietly. “Why show me today?”

  Tristan shrugged. “I just…” He flicked to another page, the picture of Dylan in the wheelchair. “In the wasteland, it was just the two of us. But here, there are so many people, so many distractions.” He closed the pad and set it aside, fixing his full attention on Dylan. “I want you to know that I still see you. This life, this world, it’s amazing, but only because I’m living it with you.”

  Dylan opened her mouth, but nothing came out. How was she supposed to respond to a declaration like that? She’d never been good with words.

  “I love you,” she managed to blurt.