by Sarah Govett
Raf and me didn’t even talk about it afterwards. We just sort of said a really tense goodnight and turned away from each other to sleep, or in my case lie there with my mind running a million miles an hour.
I wish I had Daisy to talk to. Mum even. Not Dad. Dad would slam his hands over his ears and hum really loudly so he didn’t have to hear. That, or go and kill Raf. Mum would find it really embarrassing and be biting her tongue trying not to yell at me for sleeping with someone, but she’d still care and give me a hug and tell me everything was going to be alright.
It’s the middle of the night and I’m lying next to Raf and I’ve never felt more alone.
A good night’s sleep supposedly makes everything better. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep but maybe it just being a new morning, another chance at a day, helps anyway. We didn’t really talk as we got up and dressed. We were leaving for breakfast, me heading out first, when Raf suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me back in.
‘I’m sorry, Noa. I’m sorry I…’ His voice cracked. ‘Well you know… You’re the … my first. I’m sorry. [big pause] But this,’ he gestured about wildly with his arms, ‘us being all weird and distant and everything is crazy! I love you. I can’t lose you.’
And I started crying – not the response I think he was looking for – and then I looked up and caught his eyes and we both looked so vulnerable and sad that I started laughing at how stupid we both were.
‘I thought it was me,’ I said. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore.’ And then he mock strangled me and we agreed to take it slow for a while. He held me in this bear hug for just the longest time and then we only broke apart when my stomach did this embarrassing massive rumble and we realised we were about to miss breakfast.
Maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong. The plan’s always been to rescue Jack and sneak all three of us back into the Territory. Oh yes, and we might also, somehow, as yet completely unplanned, bring down the whole regime. Hmmmmmm. But maybe the plan should be to go back and smuggle all the people we care about out of the Territory to live here in the Peak or other settlements like it.
Life here’s kind and good. Take today. I was in the school again this morning. Cara and Elias were both no-shows which was a bit annoying as I was determined to find out more about them. Then in the afternoon I was on foraging duty with Raf and Ben. Ben showed us how to identify all these different types of edible seaweed and plants and how to dig for razor clams and set snares for rabbits. Raf was so interested in everything, it just made me love him a hundred times more. It wasn’t enough for him to be able to do something, he had to understand it all, its evolution. Take the seaweed for example. He wouldn’t just accept that we were just harvesting this one type of sea kelp but leaving the brown more bulbous one. He kept on saying how he’d read in The Biology of Plants that all types of seaweed that grew here were edible.
Ben laughed, he seems to spend his whole life cracking up, and said they knew because lots of people had tried it and it was really disgusting. They only ate it if supplies were properly low. I could tell Raf still wasn’t convinced and I joined Ben in hysterics as Raf broke a piece off to try and then just couldn’t make himself swallow it ’cos it was so vile. He face literally juddered, like he’d accidentally put a small rodent in his mouth along with the seaweed.
I guess it’s this need to know for himself, to question everything, that stopped him from uploading and becoming a freakoid so there is an upside to being massively anal.
This evening there was a group meeting that everyone had to attend. Me and Raf did exaggerated eye rolls at each other when we heard this. This was going to be LAME. I mean I’ve been to school council meetings and even a meeting for all the apartments in our block and they’ve always been the dullest, most petty things ever. Who’s going to refill the water dispenser? Who’s going to organise the mopping of the communal areas? What’s going to be done about the late night noise from Flat 23?
This was different. This wasn’t a bit dull.
OK, there was some sort of admin stuff to start with. Rotas to draw up. Reports on food stores. Reports on patients. I hadn’t even realised there was anyone sick here. There are currently eleven people with malaria. They’re kept separate at the western end of the Peak. Two died in the last week. That report was given by Cara and it was clear from how detailed it was that she’s involved in their care, and this made me a bit angry to be fair. Giving her that much responsibility. Not to mention that the risks of getting malaria are surely much higher if you’re spending loads of time next to someone with it. A mosquito doesn’t exactly have to travel far after they’ve sucked it up from the sick person to then bite the person looking after them. So to put an eleven year old in charge, particularly an eleven year old who doesn’t even realise the importance of mosquito repellent?? Maybe Cara and Elias have something wrong with them? Maybe their white hair means they’ve got some sort of wasting, ageing thing going on so they’re seen as the people to sacrifice as their life expectancy is so low anyway? They don’t seem weak though so it just doesn’t add up.
Then a fire was lit and all I could think about were the flames and the heat and the light. There is something so magical about fire. You can totally see why wolves came to have a look and ended up as our dogs. People took it in turns to tell stories. And we just sort of stared into the flames, smelt the lavender of the mosquito repellent and let the words drift over us and weave us together.
That night, I snuggled into Raf’s arms and asked him to tell me a story. He tried to wriggle out of it but I kept on asking with more and more exaggerated puppy eyes and finally he gave in to, ‘stop your eyes popping out your sockets’. Hmmm. Maybe I hadn’t looked as cute as I’d thought. And then he started this story. About a shark called Sam who was a vegetarian and was teased by all the other sharks for not catching and killing his own food. But then Sam swam off and befriended a massive whale that only ate plankton so was a vegetarian too. The whale came back with Sam and basically made all the other sharks realise what idiots they were and that you could be strong without destroying others.
‘Isn’t some plankton actually little animals?’ I asked.
‘Shut up, Noa Blake. That’s not the point and you know it,’ came the reply.
I fell asleep with a massive smile on my face.
I’ve been so tired by the evenings that I haven’t spent that much time staring at the stars but I think, if I had, I would have seen them shift as everything seems to be aligning itself.
A trader came this afternoon.
One of the lookouts rang the bell during the afternoon work session. Three loud peals.
Raiders?
I was still on teaching duty so had to look brave in front of the kids even though all I wanted to do was run and hide. Maggie noticed my shaking limbs and came over.
‘Raiders?’ she literally laughed in my face. ‘No, love. Three rings is for a trader. Raiders … well there’d be much more noise, many more bells.’
But my heart was already a skip, hop and jumping. A trader was the one person who could help, who might have seen Jack.
I begged to be excused and raced out the Barn and towards Annie’s, figuring that an important person would most likely to be brought there first.
Annie looked up as I tore in. Casper, one of the other high-up guys glared at me, clearly wanting me to get out, but Annie smiled, touched his arm and asked me to come in. She got my impatience. My need.
The trader was an independent. All the traders that I’d heard about before were attached to settlements. They’d go out with some new knowledge or process to swap and then always return to the same place. Like a shuttle bus of knowledge. This guy worked on his own. The community life didn’t suit everyone. He either came up with a new process on his own or foraged some properly good haul of useful stuff by himself and then went from settlement to settlement, trading it for food and shelter. This time he brought rosemary. Huge bundles of dried rosemary that he’
d tied all over his upper body so he looked like a weird walking shrub. The smell filled the room and my mouth watered as I remembered the lamb with rosemary potatoes that mum used to make when I was a little kid. The rosemary adds to the potency of the mosquito oil, the trader explained. And pre-drying the rosemary increases the concentration of the active ingredient.
Annie looked impressed. No wonder, I suppose, if eleven of your people are sick with malaria. A deal was struck. One big bundle for four nights’ food and shelter.
Finally it was my turn to speak.
‘Have you seen a boy called Jack?’ I asked, the words tumbling out of my mouth. I guess I deserved the stupid girl, you expect me to work with that description?!! look that he shot back. So I pulled myself together and described Jack in as much detail as I could until I got an OK now that’s too much information look instead.
‘Do you want to tell me his star sign too?’ He let out a dirty, sarcy little laugh.
I felt all this animosity building towards this guy. How dare he sit there all smug and judge me? He doesn’t know what I’ve been through. And then the trader opened his mouth again and I went from hating him to wanting to jump on him and kiss him, dirty little mouth and all.
He’d seen Jack.
Jack was alive.
Jack didn’t have malaria, at least he didn’t two days ago.
Jack was living in a settlement called the Fort a day and a half’s walk to the south east.
I looked at Annie and didn’t even need to get my question out. She didn’t need to hear it to be able to answer.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re strong enough now. We will miss you and Raf, but you can leave tomorrow.’
Small and deadly.
A swarm of mosquitoes came in the night. We must have been dead to the world as I only woke when our mosquito net was shaking from side to side as millions of tiny wings brushed past. Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Their horrible cry. I shook Raf awake next to me and we just lay there, rigid, holding hands and praying that the net had no holes and that we’d put enough repellent on. And it felt so unnatural to just lie there. Your body wants to fight danger, or at least to flee from it. But you can’t exactly fight a swarm of mosquitoes and if you get out of the net, you’re way more likely to get bitten up.
I have no idea how long we stayed there. We waited till we couldn’t see or hear any more of them and then waited a bit more after that just to make sure.
The first of the dawn light was cutting through the sky as we finally stumbled outside. On the street, all around, were other dazed people. Everyone was checking themselves. Had we been bitten? I felt all over my body, terrified that I’d find one. That they’d got me.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then a bump. On my thigh. Oh God. I checked and nearly choked on my relief at finding it was an ingrowing hair. Disgusting but in that split second I loved it. I could hardly bear to meet Raf’s eyes in case he’d been got. He finished checking a few minutes after me and I don’t think I took a single breath in all that time. Just as I was about to die from lack of oxygen, Raf announced, ‘all clear’, in a small, shaky voice.
Others weren’t so lucky. Loads of the mosquito nets were really quite old now. They had holes that people’d tried to tape or sew up over the years, but it’s so hard to make sure you’ve got every gap. And mosquito repellent might keep the odd mosquito away or even a small group, but it’s not going to hold up against a swarm.
There was a meeting at the Barn. Everyone who’d been bitten had to stand on one side so we could count them. Twenty-seven. Including Ben and two of the kids from the school.
I heard someone cry out, ‘No!’ and it took a moment for me to realise that it’d been my voice. I think my brain was trying to go into a protective disconnect mode. For once Ben’s face had no trace of a smile, like it wasn’t him but a much more serious identical twin up there. Raf looked as upset as I felt.
More shelters were going to be turned into wards to observe and care for them, Annie continued, taking charge in her gentle yet authoritative way. Being bitten did not necessarily mean the person was going to get malaria or any other virus, she stressed. But, the strain of malaria the mosquitoes out here carried was a particularly nasty one. Symptoms normally appeared within twenty-four hours and within that time complications such as brain swell, liver failure and fluid-filled lungs were also common so anyone who’d ever done so much as a first-aid course was needed to help out.
She needn’t have asked. Everyone helped. It’s like a big family here. There was no talk of going back to sleep. There weren’t prayers as such but as darkness started to fall, reed torches were lit at points all round the settlement, a bit like candles in a church. Annie confided that most settlements do it whenever something bad’s happened or lots of people are sick. I guess religion doesn’t have a monopoly on light as hope.
Flames don’t just attract moths.
The Raiders came just before dawn. There was no warning as everyone, including the sentries, was involved in setting up the new wards, sponging down patients who’d already developed fever and re-darning mosquito nets. The sick bastards would have seen the burning reeds and known we were weak. Vulnerable to attack.
I don’t know exactly how many Raiders there were. Something in the region of fifteen to twenty. Their approach had been silent but once they’d come through the perimeter fence, their war cries tore the air like a hundred seagulls shrieking. They came armed with knives and club-like sticks and cut and kicked and hit their way from shack to shack. They had their faces smeared with mud, I guess as some sort of war paint or camouflage, but you could still see their features underneath. There were grown men, but there were also boys and girls not much older than me, eyes cold like stones, empty of empathy. How could they! I flung myself onto one of the girls’ backs, but she threw me off and whacked her club into my stomach. I was doubled up on the floor, puking from the blow. Lying on the ground I could do nothing but watch. Watch as Raf was smashed against the wall by one of the bigger raiders; watch as Annie was pulled into the street with a knife to her throat; watch as the cow was dragged out of the settlement with no one daring to stop it in case that meant the death of their leader. Then came the worst bit. The Raiders’ leader, this guy in his twenties with long dreadlocked blond hair, called for silence.
‘No one else will be hurt,’ his voice rang out, ‘if you bring us your Cells.’
No one moved. Cells? I had no idea what he was talking about but it looked as if everyone else did. They seemed to shrink in on themselves a little as if to hide the secret in the folds of their skin.
‘If you don’t,’ the Raiders’ leader continued, ‘this woman here will die.’ There was a loud group intake of breath. The guy was clearly capable of killing. His clothes, if you could call his leather outfit that, was covered with dried and not so dried blood.
‘Your Cells. NOW!’
‘We have no Cells here,’ Annie spoke, trying to keep her voice steady, but failing. She was speaking loudly. Speaking to all of us.
‘Wrong answer,’ the Raider shouted, and with that, to show his seriousness, he jabbed the point of his knife slightly into Annie’s neck so a trickle of blood flowed down.
‘You have one more chance before I gut your leader like a pig. Traders told us there are two of them here. But. (Pause followed by a crocodile’s smile.) I’m in a generous mood. We’ll just take the one. Give us the girl and we’ll leave you in peace.’ And he sort of snorted the word peace as if he’d just made this brilliant joke.
No one moved.
‘You have thirty seconds.’ Then the leader turned to this tall guy, lurking at the side. ‘Ray, start torching the shacks.’
‘Ray’ walked forward, into the light so I got to see his face. Half of it melted like dripping wax. Oh God. Oh God, the psycho.
I’d like to say that I immediately sprang into action. That I picked up something from the ground and took out Ray
and then kept going, an unstoppable force, until every Raider, including the leader himself was gone too. I didn’t. I squeezed my eyes shut like a toddler playing hide-and-seek as the leader starting counting and the buildings started burning.
Then, above all the chaos a voice cried out. ‘Stop! Stop! I’ll go with you if you just stop!’
I opened my eyes once more. Cara was walking towards the leader, oblivious to Annie’s, ‘Nooooooooo!’
The Raiders left with their prizes and we put out the fires. Looking around, the fire in everyone’s eyes had been extinguished too.
And I finally found out what was so special about Cara and Elias. Maggie told me as I was helping her clear burnt timber out of the Barn, the secret no longer worth keeping. Some of the children who’d been born out here had been born with what must be some sort of genetic mutation. Their hair was white and their skin was whiter than normal, but that wasn’t the important thing. They didn’t get malaria.
And it wasn’t just in the Peak. They’d heard talk about similar children at a number of other settlements. The few ex-scientists in the Peak have a theory that there’s something different about the shape of their red blood cells meaning that the malarial plasmodium can’t invade them.
‘Like sickle cell anaemia?’ I asked. We’d done this in biology.
‘A bit like that but better. Sickle cell anaemia makes you weak and die young. These Cells, as they call them, aren’t weak. They’re the opposite. They’re stronger than anyone. They’re the only ones with a decent chance of survival.’