“I made you a promise.”
I remember. A long time ago, when I had thought I was about to die, I asked Darius to do this. To find my dad and tell him I was dead.
“But how…how did you find me?”
Even before I’ve got the question out, I know the answer. I see the answer. I know it before Darius tells me that he tried my dad’s house, in London, then he went straight back to Dartbridge, to the school. He looked at my records; he found my house. I see the kitchen door. I see, written on it in Saskia’s neat handwriting, the list of every place I was going to look for my dad.
The Lancaster people said the army had already come calling…
…but that was before I ran away.
I am the secret, and the keeper of the secret.
“Ruby…” Darius whispers. I trace my finger across his lips, and he kisses it…but I keep it there, keeping him quiet.
“I’ll tell you. I will tell you. Just wait.”
I leave him in the car, saying I just want to quickly say thank you to the Lancaster people. There are only a few of them at home, guarding the kids like proper responsible adults should do. I stand in front of them and I tell them… Well, I just kind of ramble on. It goes something like this:
“So…the thing is…if anyone else shows up asking for me…please just tell them you don’t know where I am. Or my dad. Yeah—um—please just don’t tell anyone about us.”
There’re mumbles, mutters, concern. There’re mumbles, mutters, concern in my own head too. This plan is a terrible plan, the main flaw being that it’s not going to work. It’s just like the Internet is back. It’s just like posting a thing and hoping people won’t have opinions about it, when you so know that if you post something, EVERYONE is going to have an opinion about it, whether or not they actually, like, saw what you originally said. Instead of just going Thumbs-Up, Like, Favorite, and moving on, they’re going to say stuff about it. Some of them may even ask questions.
“Why?” would be the main question here. No one asks it. I think that Bridget lady might have done, so really it’s probably just as well that she’s not there.
I see how it is: although it is the apocalypse, I’m still just a teenager to them. I am, basically, a kid with pubic hair and more problems.
We are taking Dan’s creatures to the Butterfly House. It is high on a hill outside town. We went there so many times with Grandma. I remember it as a warm, tropical paradise, filled with gorgeous butterflies.
It is like an autumn out of a nightmare fairy tale. It is bone dry and weepingly sad. We scrunch in over a carpet of dead leaves and butterfly bodies, their wings still so shockingly pretty it hurts to tread on them.
From dead plants draped with the webs of desperate spiders, butterfly cocoons still hang, so easy to spot—bright green, bright blue, bright yellow. The weird worst thing is that the door was not locked; it is the weird worst thing because it makes me have some random thought that if the butterflies could have somehow realized this, maybe they could have all piled down onto the door handle and gotten out. That maybe the weight of all of them would have been enough to set them free.
It is a stupid thought.
Darius looks so worried. I know I’m going to have to tell him now. I know I’m going to have to tell him.
I find that I cannot stand. I sit down on the leaves and the wings, and put my head in my hands and say it:
“I am a freak.”
I hear Darius scrunch down beside me. He puts his arm around my shoulder. I can almost hear his brain trying to calculate an appropriate response. As usual, it’s a disaster.
“I don’t think you’re that much of a freak,” he says.
“Muh-hoo, muh-hoo, muh-hoo,” I go. It is a feeble crying that is as dry and thin and ugly as this greenhouse freakish autumn. It is not a mighty troll crying. It is the crying of a freak.
“Oh, Ru, sorry… You know what I mean. You’re not really a freak.”
“You don’t know,” I muh-hoo, “you don’t know.”
“Or, I mean, you know, maybe I am too,” the Spratt blunders on. “Probably in many ways a lot of people are.”
I look up at him. “Darius. I AM a freak.”
He smiles this sweet little worried smile. “I still love you,” he says. The sweet little worried smile falls from his face, replaced by a look of devastating seriousness. “I love you,” he says.
I stare at him. This is what you’re supposed to wait your whole life to hear, isn’t it? Someone who really does genuinely, truly, completely, and utterly love you telling you that they love you. Of course, any which way you’d ever dare to imagine such a moment, it wouldn’t IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM BE LIKE THIS, WOULD IT? YOU WOULDN’T BE HEARING IT SITTING IN A DEAD PARADISE FILLED WITH DESPERATE SPIDERS, WOULD YOU?
AND IT CERTAINLY, IT CERTAINLY, IT CERTAINLY WOULDN’T BE BEING SAID TO YOU BECAUSE THE PERSON SAYING IT HAS JUST COMPLETELY MIS-UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING YOU ARE SAYING.
WOULD IT?
I breathe. I wonder what it would be like to just whisper back, “I love you too,” and then take it from there. (Never mentioning the whole FREAK thing again.) I wonder what it would be like to say that to Darius Spratt, period. And you know what? Part of me feels more scared of that than anything else.
“I am both the secret and the keeper of the secret,” I tell him.
The little worried smile creeps back onto his face…
By the time I’ve finished explaining, there’s no smile and nothing little left. We are way beyond worry. We are into BIG FROWN territory. The Spratt is deeply, deeply troubled.
“Ruby…” says Darius.
Then, just like Xar, he asks many questions I can’t really answer, and one I can:
“So do you think the army is after you?”
“No.”
“Hn.”
We have not fallen off the edge of the world. It has gotten colder. It has gotten darker. Time is not going to wait for us, not now.
“We’d better go,” I tell him.
“Ru—wait,” he says.
He grabs my arm. I glare at him. He’s going to say something I don’t want to hear. I know it in my cold bones. Worse than that, I know it in my head. I know it exactly.
“We need to tell people about this,” says Darius.
“No, we don’t.”
I shake loose and stomp out to the car, yank open the trunk, and grab up a tank of deadly things. The Spratt is hot on my heels; he is not going to let this go.
“I wish you’d just let me explain,” he says, taking the tank off me.
“You don’t need to explain,” I tell him, grabbing another tank; the lid falls off—which would be pretty alarming, but whatever Dan has got in there is hiding under a bunch of bark and leaves. “I get it. But there are other people who know about this stuff, Darius—they’re probably sorting it all out right now.”
The thing in the tank stirs. Best not hang around; I stomp back into the greenhouse.
“Yeah—what if they’re not, Ruby?”
“Well, they will be. It’s all going to be OK. Everything’s going to be OK.”
I dump the tank far from the door; Darius—following me—does the same.
“You don’t know that,” he says. “You saw it for yourself how they’re trying to shut people up. What if there’s been some kind of coup or something?”
“! You sound just like Ronnie!”
“The conspiracy kid?”
“Yeah, Ronnie. My friend Ronnie.”
Who kept a whole school supplied with terrifying information that people only ever took seriously for kicks. Who knew the rain was coming. Who is now dead. But he died knowing he was, finally, right about something.
All I want to do is live.
“I wish I’d never told you.” I kick the tank over.
/> “But you did,” he says, kicking his tank over.
“Yeah, well, I wish I’d never.”
And I stomp back to the car for more. It was horrific, what happened after I blurted it to Xar, but somehow this is even more awful. This is different; this is Darius. Hn. How did this ever happen? I care about what Darius Spratt thinks.
“But, Ru,” he says, as I load up his outstretched arms with the last batch of deadly creatures.
“What if…?”
“What if what?!” I say, stomping off…but I am not so lost in where I am now, feelings-wise, that I do not totally register that the tank I am carrying has the scorpion in it.
“What if…?” the Spratt says, kicking over his tank—just lizards. They look harmless enough. They scuttle out, rustling across dry leaves.
I watch them go, disappearing into the gathering dark. I see the scorpion scuttle after them. I back off; a tarantula starts to climb a dead plant.
“What if what?” I snarl.
“I mean…this isn’t just about you, is it, Ru?”
“Don’t you think I know that?!” I screech. “Don’t you think I know?! I’m scared, Darius. I’m scared and tired, and I’ve had enough.”
We stand there for a second, still as still can be, staring at each other, our eyes glinting in the last of the dying light like we were stuffed things in the museum. Creatures rustle around us, crackling through the dead stuff. That place, that greenhouse, it is suddenly very scary.
“We can’t let these things go, can we?” I say out loud.
It is what we are both thinking, I know. On this point, I know we are in agreement. It is as clear as the moment, months ago, when we realized we couldn’t take Whitby the puddle drinker with us—only not nearly so heartbreaking. These creatures are NOT cuddly.
“Look, Ru,” Darius says.
I remember that he’s not supposed to call me that, but I am too weakened by the horror of everything to point that out right now. The Spratt bends to examine a cocoon. I peer at it. Inside it, I see life. I see a new butterfly, wriggling.
The Spratt yanks up part of a metal drainage grid; I don’t get what he’s doing until it’s done. He flings, high, at the glass and a pane shatters.
The butterflies have a way out now. I mean… I’m not a total idiot, OK? I do realize if any of them do get out of here, they’ll probably snuff it anyway, but I did see a weird thing once about butterfly migration (thank you, Simon) and if they figure out where they are, they can go thousands of miles to the nearest nice place. Maybe. A chance is a chance, isn’t it?
That’s a pretty brilliant thing for a nerd to do (especially the one I am arguing with) to give them a chance, and I turn round to tell him that and—
WOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRGGGH!
TRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Just a few feet away from us—like, REALLY, don’t ask me to get specific about DISTANCES right now!—a RATTLESNAKE lies coiled, head up, tail up—rattling—ready to strike. Either the snake has cottoned onto our plans, or I guess there weren’t enough hamster casualties to go around and the snake wants a snack. I grab hold of the Spratt. We stand there, face-to-face, and for a minute fraction of a microsecond, he doesn’t get it and probably thinks I’m going to kiss him again or something before his eyes swivel and he gets it and I feel him—
“Noh!” I breathe, squeezing his arms hard to hold him still. “Don’t move,” I tell him, as quiet as quiet can be—and it even comes out like “Don’t ’oove” because I am too terrified even to let my mouth move enough to make the words.
TRRRRRRR!
Dar wants to run; I feel it. Oh, man! I just want to run too! But if you do that with a rattler, it’ll just strike. The SAS were very clear about that.
“Noh.” I can’t even shake my head. All I can do is attempt a mind-control stare, trying to force that no deep into the Spratt’s mind.
In his eyes, I see the question, “Are you sure?” Which is just as well because when he tries to say it, I can’t really understand it, and also it comes out at the sort of low, buzzing pitch that I suspect would annoy any snake.
I death-ray stare to the max. “Shu-uh,” I breathe at him.
It is not working. He’s a runner; I can feel it. He bolts, snake will strike, and—NEW PICTURE: me and the Spratt lying dead among leaves and butterfly wings with deadly stuff crawling all over us.
“Is ore scare ov us an ooee are ov it.”
TRRRRRRRRR!
The Spratt stares into my eyes; his bulge with fear—same as mine. The snake is clearly failing to understand the situation—but SO IS THE SPRATT. I feel him strain in my grasp.
TRRRRRRRRR!
“I read it in uh ook,” I breathe into the Spratt’s face.
That he registers: ook. Ook means “book” means something Ruby read, not something she is making up or guessing at. I see that, but I need to gain complete confidence. Thu Ess-Ay-Ess Sur-wy-wal Guide.
I do not want to repeat those eses; I suspect the snake does not like them. In my mind’s eye, I can see the whole page, all the advice about when to suck the venom out and when not, when to apply a tourniquet and when not… It’s just I can’t quite see which snakes they were talking about. All I remember is…
“Don’t oove.” My eyes plead with the Spratt’s eyes.
If we budge an inch, we are done for. So we wait. Face-to-face, trying to stop each other from shaking—all me and the Spratt can do is wait, staring at each other.
I blink, slowly, when I hear the helicopters.
They have come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Spratt blinks slowly back.
TRRR?! the snake chips in.
Like, really, I am about ready to shout at it, but the SAS Survival Guide warns very specifically against any sort of agitated behavior when confronted by a frightened snake.
All I can do is stand, staring into the Spratt’s eyes, listening. Way I hear it, the direction it seems to be…
The noise stops.
I want not to think it, but I know it. They’ve landed somewhere near my grandma’s house.
The snake calms, goes quiet; still, we don’t dare move because the snake won’t do what the SAS promised it would do and CLEAR OFF.
I’m not holding the Spratt still anymore; we’re holding each other up.
I feel a single, frightened tear slide down my cheek, but the SAS and the Spratt’s gaze keep the rest back.
Don’t. You can be strong. Ruby, be strong.
Though of course I cannot know that for sure. The Spratt could really be thinking: DON’T START BLUBBERING, YOU FREAK, OR YOU’RE GONNA GET US BOTH KILLED! In that moment, I realize it is mainly me who thinks like that. It is harsh, sometimes, the way that I think about things, but perhaps it has its uses.
We hear something—not helicopters but a small, rustling something. I swivel my eyeballs slowly and see the something: a lizard, scuttling across dead leaves, probably wondering where the boy with the dead hamster snacks has gone. The snake doesn’t swivel its eyeballs; it swivels its head. It spots dinner. Those leaves? Those butterfly wings? It hardly even ruffles them as it slides off after the lizard.
The Spratt and I reconnect eyeballs. Arms are squeezed—slowly. The blink of a yes is made.
We pelt out of that place, slamming the door shut so hard I can’t be sure the gunshot that follows wasn’t some weird kind of an echo.
It isn’t some weird kind of an echo; in this new world—without many people, without people noise—sound travels.
When I hear the next gunshot, I flinch. Me and the Spratt stop where we are, hands on the doors of my dad’s car.
Those people, those lovely, kind people—they’ve been found, haven’t they?
They are being made to blurt; I thought they’d just blurt anyway, but it has taken a gun and a bullet—two bul
lets!—to make them do it.
We hear the helicopters start up.
We get in the car, and we DRIVE.
As I drive into town like a reckless speed-freak boy-racer psycho, killer, lunatic (yeah, we had them, even in sleepy old Dartbridge), swerving with insane gear changes around stuff, and even above the roar of an engine that is being made to go like it was not made to go, and the screech of brakes burning that we only get the slightest whiff of because we are going TOO FAST, TOO FAST, TOO FAST, I see the helicopters—two of them (For lil’ ol’ me? Like, really, the army needs to get a life!), their searchlights on in the dusk that’s so much more dark than it should be because—yeah, great!—IT IS GOING TO RAIN.
It is worse than that. It is coming on dark as night because it is going to POUR DOWN.
And I realize there is NO WAY we are going to make it to my dad’s before them, not all the way around through Morecambe, unless…
I am thinking so fast right now. Get a boat, cut across estuary, get family to safety. Simple, simple, simple—AS IF!—screech, screech, screech.
Unless. There is no “unless.” By the time we make it to the slipway at the dock, the helicopters are landing, two fields away from the house. In the beam of their searchlights, a glimpse of the ponies (freaking out)…then they are down. I can’t see anyone in the house, but the lights are being turned off, fast.
I kill the engine. I keep the power on though. We need it to see what is going on. We need it because we need the windshield wipers. It is raining.
Oh yes, the rain— you, rain!—has shown up.
It pelts down, every tiny drop of it going “Ha!” as it hits the windshield.
From this place, we could have taken any old boat (there are tons of them, and it can’t be that difficult to drive one, can it?); we could have gotten across the estuary to my dad’s in minutes, so much quicker than the road…because the house is right there, right there in front of us, just across the water. That is high tide but turning; the earth and the moon are playing tug-of-war with the sea so hard that white rip-tide waves of foam froth in the gloom. But I would do it; I would cross that to get home. Right now, I would get out of this car and…
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