Now I really can’t sleep. I don’t want to think about Greg following me all around Gatesbrooke. Is it because he doesn’t trust me, or because he’s part of the cell? And what about Ril? Or is her name actually Sue Smith? Even Oskar is becoming a big question mark. I don’t want to think about them either. I wish I could just be me. A girl with no secrets.
I want to go to sleep jolting with the bus, my ear warm against Greg’s checked shoulder; I want to go back to that moment before I fully woke up, when we could both pretend we hadn’t noticed how close we were. But it’s not real.
I can’t believe that Greg’s in the cell. I’m sure he was unhappy with the Brotherhood activists torching the rioters’ car. I can’t see him being violent.
I want to go to sleep as Verity. Tomorrow I can go back to the hard task of being K. Or is it the other way around?
I have even less of an idea who to watch than when I first came in. How can I make friends with people only to spy on them, when my gut feeling is telling me that we’re looking in the wrong place? I push away the thought that I could be horribly wrong, that I could be right in the middle of the hornet’s nest.
No, I can’t do this anymore. It’s suddenly so clear that I sit up straight.
When I see Oskar next week, I’m going to tell him I made a mistake. We’ll have the whole weekend, so there will be time to talk, and Oskar will understand. He’ll make it OK.
I want my old life back. I want to be K Child again.
CHAPTER 16
SCHOOL’S OVER FOR the week and those of us who board are relaxing on the couches in the common room, when the loudspeaker cuts over our conversation: “Verity Nekton to Reception.”
Greg looks across the coffee table, one eyebrow raised. Celestina puts her book down. “Where are you going, Verity?” She gives me an innocent little smile, but I’m sure she thinks I’m up to something.
“Um, I don’t really know.” I put my sketchbook down on a cushion and it falls open to a drawing of the view from my halfway house room.
“If you don’t know, why are you going?” Greg leans forward.
Always so suspicious. But that’s it, isn’t it? It’s that he doesn’t trust me. Within the Institute or the Brotherhood. His suspicion masks his worry. He thinks I might be an activist. Oskar is wrong about there being a cell here. I’m the cell, the citizen cell.
“I’m going away for the weekend with my social worker,” I say. “She didn’t say where.”
Greg smiles. He’s put me in the wrong again.
Celestina picks up my sketchbook. “Hey, this is good,” she says. “There’s the station, the square, the Town Hall. And even”—she passes it back to me—“the Institute, up at the top.”
I take the sketchbook from her, seeing it suddenly through her eyes. The river, bisecting the picture, and the Old City Meeting Hall so small compared to the Town Hall in the New City. “I’d better go.” I pick up my file.
“Have a nice weekend, Verity.” It’s a relief to have Serafina back from the hospital. There’s nothing knowing in her voice. She really means it.
And then I realize with a pang of sadness that I might never see any of them again. But I feel relief too, because I’m not going to harm them, or lie to them anymore. I look at Serafina, beaming at me. Emanuel smiling at her.
Celestina half-turns, her hair falling over one shoulder. “Bye, Verity.”
“Bye, Celestina.” I wish I could have gotten to know her properly.
Jeremiah looks up and nods. That’s ultrafriendly, for him. I feel a stab of guilt because I don’t even think Jeremiah’s suspicious now.
“Good-bye, Verity.” Greg fixes me with a stare.
I look back at him. “Bye.”
I go to the Sisters’ house to fetch my things. I didn’t pack much, because Ril said she’d bring my own stuff. I swing my bag over one shoulder and pause in the doorway. My eyes fall on the miniature zoo of stuffed animals scattered across Serafina’s bed. I will never see this room again. That’s what I want, isn’t it? To leave? But still, it’s gnawing at me, inside my chest. I didn’t say good-bye properly.
RIL IS PACING the Reception when I come in. “You were a long time.”
“Sorry.”
We walk to her blue car in silence. She brakes at the caretaker’s lodge, waiting for Mr. East to open the gate.
“Ril? Can you hold on one second? There’s someone I have to see.” I jump out and run around the back of the car to the lodge. Raymond comes out, tail whirling. He doesn’t know that I will never take him for another walk.
I crouch down and gather him into my arms.
Raymond’s tail lowers slowly as he realizes there’s no walk today.
Ril smiles when I get back in. “I thought for a minute there you weren’t going to come.” She glances at me.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Ril drives away from the Institute and turns off the road onto a forestry path. She parks next to a shiny black four-wheel drive, jumps out, and opens the back door. “Come on!” She tosses my bag inside, and peels off her stylish jacket. Underneath it she’s just wearing a black vest. She puts a khaki jacket on and pulls off a wig. No wonder her hair was always so neat! She runs her fingers through her short auburn hair, spiking it up. “That’s better!”
Who is she? Not my social worker, that’s for sure. She looks like a different person, a pretty one. I look down at my clothes. I’m wearing the deck-chair and Serafina’s pink hooded cardigan, which I now remember I forgot to ask to borrow. The weird thing is, I also feel like me.
“Why don’t you change too, K?” says Ril. “I’ve got some things for you here. You won’t want to look too Brotherhood where we’re going.”
I look in the backpack she’s holding out. “These aren’t my things. You said you’d bring my own stuff.”
“I know. Sorry.” She goes around to the front and gets into the driver’s seat. “Just wasn’t possible for this weekend.”
I pull the jeans on beneath the dress. They almost fit. I tug the deck-chair off over my head and put on a black T-shirt instead of the lemon one I was wearing under the dress. Then I shrug Serafina’s pink cardigan back on again. There’s something comforting about it. I climb into the passenger seat. Ril sees me look back at the blue car.
“Don’t worry about that.” She starts the engine. “It’ll get picked up.” She glances down at my feet, in their friendly boots, and she smiles. “You got the list? From the visitors’ book?”
“Not yet.”
She frowns.
“Where’s Oskar?” I know I sound like a child.
“He’s there already.”
I’m not going to ask her any more questions. I’ll wait until I see Oskar. I wish I had a bottle of water. I bet Greg would have brought one. He’d probably have a bar of chocolate too, and his wind-up flashlight and a compass. I smile.
I thought we were going somewhere far away, but Ril heads for the Old City and the ring road that leads to the coast. And then we’re going uphill, fields on either side of the road, and I know what I’ll see as we come over the crest.
Below, the green arms of the hills circle the valley. The little stone town curls around the bay, and the sea stretches to the sky, touched with fingers of pink and gold.
Yoremouth.
I stare up at the sunshade to stop my tears. This is the first time I’ve been home in almost six years, since Grandma died.
“Ah.” I let myself breathe out. “You didn’t say we were going to Yoremouth.”
“I know,” says Ril. “Poor K! And you didn’t even get to bring your bucket and spade.”
I look at her. But she’s smiling a friendly smile.
We follow the seafront, under the ruined castle and around to the south bay. Ril parks outside a row of fishermen’s cottages, the ones on the pebble beach where I used to swim.
She turns off the engine and spikes up her short hair with one hand while checking her phone with the other. “O
skar’s with some friends,” she says. “We’ll go straight there.”
We walk briskly through the back streets away from the promenade. Groups of students are going out for the evening, gathering in the street outside bars and restaurants. I want to go slowly, take in all the things that are different and yet familiar. We stop at an inn in a narrow street. I follow Ril up the wooden stairs, and as we reach the landing a door opens and Oskar appears.
“Oskar!” I step closer.
“K.” Oskar puts his arms around me in a bear hug.
I hug him back, not wanting to let go. His leather jacket feels warm under my hands and he makes me feel safe again, just like he did on the day of the bomb. Everything will be OK now.
His long hair flops over one eye. “Look at you.” He smiles at me, giving the back of my cardigan a friendly tug. “Little Hoody!”
He’s only joking.
I follow them into the bar. I’m with Oskar for the whole weekend. It’ll be such a relief to talk to him about what’s been happening. To tell him I want to leave. I look at him as he stands beside a table. He looks older than I remember. He glances at me and smiles easily, right up into the amber flecks of his eyes.
It’s very crowded in here, and everyone seems to know each other. A girl on the bench beside me moves over to make room, so I sit down. Ril goes to get drinks, but the man on the end, with a stubbly beard and spiky dark hair, jumps up to get them instead.
“Thanks, Col,” says Ril. She sits down opposite me.
Oskar sits beside her, too far away to talk to me. Are he and Ril partners? And if so, what kind? I don’t like to think of Oskar being with Ril. She’s just too shifty. Oskar turns quickly as Ril speaks to him.
She smiles at me across the table. She’s clearly not a social worker. But I can ask Oskar everything tomorrow.
Col puts a beer in front of me. I’m so thirsty that I drink it very quickly. I look up at the TV screen, which has rolling subtitles: TWELVE CHARGED DESECRATING VIGIL . . . THREE MORE SUSPECTED TERRORISTS SENT TO TRANQUILITY SOUND . . .
Col’s eyes follow mine. “They seem to worship death. They have no respect, K.”
I jump when he calls me “K,” and glance at Oskar. But he doesn’t see me. He’s leaning forward to listen to Col.
“They’re not living in the same century as us, and they treat women like servants. Though I suppose you know that from the Institute,” Col continues.
Oskar nods. Ril props her chin on her elbows.
They. I think of Greg and Emanuel. “They” have never treated me like a servant and “they” certainly don’t worship death. But then I think of the man who blew himself up at Central Station. That’s who Col is talking about. Col walks back with us, because it’s his house we’re staying in. It’s dark now, and fog is rolling in from the sea. Even that fills me with a sense of peace, because I’m in the only place I’ve ever been at home. It’s nice not having to pretend to be a Brotherhood girl, to feel part of a group without tricking anyone. Oskar must live here too, because he unlocks the cottage door, which leads straight into the front room. It smells of wood fires and damp. There are newspapers on every surface. It’s strange to see them now. Maybe I’ll read one. Maybe we’ll eat at last.
But Ril says, “You must be tired. I’ll show you to your room.”
I pick up my wool bag and the backpack she gave me, and follow her up to the attic. The room has a sloping ceiling and a bow window looking out to sea.
“Good night, then,” she says in the doorway. It’s like a dismissal.
I get into bed hungry and lie there for a while, alone with the sea, my head thrumming. Oskar must think that Ril and I ate on the way. I’m sure I could go downstairs and find something, but I don’t want to seem like a child getting out of bed to get a drink of water, and I can’t hear if they’re still up because of the crashing waves. From the Gatesbrooke Sound a foghorn echoes. The wind has risen and the sash window rattles in its pane. I don’t have to think of anything but the swishing of the waves. I should have gotten a glass of water from the kitchen. I lie in the dark, my mouth dry as crackers.
“K? K! OSKAR wants to talk to you.”
I snap awake. Ril’s footsteps run down the stairs.
Sunlight sneaks around the edges of the curtain. I drag myself up. My head feels as if ants are crawling under my scalp. I pull on the jeans and a brown T-shirt from the bag Ril gave me. There’s a gray long-sleeved top too, so I leave Serafina’s cardigan on my bed, even though it’s warmer. When I look in the little mirror, I see that my hair is a little too long for a citizen now. I tie it up to make it look shorter.
There’s a delicious smell of toast in the kitchen, where Oskar and Ril are sitting at the table. Ril lays her newspaper down, and I read the headline: RIOTS AFTER RECONCILIATION BILL.
Col is in the living room, sorting through papers on the couch.
“K.” Oskar leaps up. “Let’s go for a walk.” His eyes follow mine to the plate of toast on the table.
But before he can speak Ril says, “You can have breakfast later.”
Outside, the breeze blows away the sun’s warmth. Oskar strides toward the harbor, and I hurry to keep up. We pass beach huts painted lemon and rose and mint. After a while they give way to the old blue and white huts that I remember. Their paint is cracking into blisters and their iron doors are crusted red. They each have a padlock securing the door. They used to be easy to force open, though; half of them were so rusted that one good knock would break them. I used to spend cozy times hiding inside, drawing in peace where Grandma couldn’t see. Not a bad place to go if you ever needed somewhere to lay your head.
We reach the end of the promenade and sit on the harbor wall with our legs dangling over the edge. I need to get all my questions straight and in the right order. And then to tell Oskar he’s wrong—there’s nothing at the Institute, no sleeper cells or terrorists, not even Jeremiah. And that because of this I want to leave.
The fishing boats dip on the white caps of the waves and the breeze makes me shiver. It’s hard to concentrate with the sun dazzling my eyes and Oskar’s leather arm against mine.
I look sideways at him. He turns to smile at me, and it’s such a warm smile that it makes me forget all the questions I meant to ask. Where should I begin?
Oskar looks away, across to where the sea churns around rocks at the end of the harbor wall.
I want to ask him who Ril is. And tell him that I made a mistake. I look at him again. The breeze lifts his sandy hair. I promised him I would do this. I’m letting him down. My heart begins to hammer as I open my mouth to speak.
But Oskar speaks first.
“K,” he says, shifting sideways so that he can look straight at me. In the glittering sunlight his eyes look green. “There’s something I have to tell you. It might come as a bit of a shock.”
Is this about the list? Or have they found something? Not about Greg? I feel the blood drumming in my ears.
“It’s about your name,” says Oskar. “K Child. Your real name.”
He pauses, and I don’t say anything, so he goes on. “The thing is,” he says, “we’ve had to get rid of K Child.”
My hand grasps the metal railing.
“K Child is . . . gone,” says Oskar.
“What do you mean?” My voice is thin and dry.
Oskar’s hand skims my back. He looks into my eyes and smiles. “K Child is dead.”
CHAPTER 17
EVERYTHING GOES STILL. All I can hear is the pulse deep inside my ears. Dead. Dead. Dead. The sunlight glints off the waves and into my eyes. I let myself breathe out, very slowly. The only thing that feels real is the metal railing I’m gripping.
“What do you mean?” I say again. I’m surprised how clear my voice sounds. “Dead?”
Oskar keeps his eyes on mine, but now his expression shifts. He looks relieved. “A girl was found,” he says. “Drowned. She was identified as K Child.”
“By ‘Sue Smith’?” I can’t
hide the hostility in my voice. “Or by you? What have you done? Who do you work for?”
Oskar puts his hand on my arm, stopping me from getting up. “No, actually,” he says, “it was staff from the halfway house, initially. You were registered missing. Sue Smith confirmed it. And you know who I work for, K.” He hesitates. “You have to remember the body was in the sea for a while. Decomposed beyond recognition.”
“Whose body?” Below us, green water swirls around the harbor supports.
Oskar shrugs. “Who knows? Just a girl. Nobody was looking for her. It was simply good timing.”
I try not to think about that girl, who has taken my name to the grave. But I can’t stop myself from asking. “What happened to her?” I don’t care that my voice is shaky.
Oskar stares at me. “What?”
“Her body. What happened to it?”
Oskar looks out across the harbor. “It—she—would have been cremated. I suppose they scatter the ashes in the crematorium if nobody wants them.” He puts his arm across my shoulders and pats my back. “You’re shocked,” he says. “Of course you are. Let’s go back and have breakfast.”
“I don’t want to be Verity Nekton anymore.” My voice is high and small, not like my voice at all. I can barely breathe.
“You don’t have any choice,” says Oskar quietly.
“What if I find someone who remembers me? What then?”
Oskar takes hold of my arm. I can feel his fingers and thumb on either side of the bone. I stare into his eyes, and in the glare his pupils have receded to dots. He’s going to push me off the harbor wall!
Then he laughs, and pulls me toward him. “It’s not very likely,” he says. “You’ve got no papers—not anymore; Ril has seen to that. You hardly went to your school in the New City. You’ve moved around a lot, and we confirmed as part of our initial background check that your last foster parents emigrated to the southern hemisphere. The staff at the halfway house have changed since you left. Who else is there?” He jumps up. “Come on, let’s go and get breakfast.”
I’m not hungry anymore. And my hand is fastened around the railing. Frozen in place. It takes me a moment to uncurl my white knuckles. I twist my legs around and over, and slide down from the wall. Of course Oskar wasn’t going to push me in. All the same, the trust we had feels broken.
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