by Anne Corlett
Afterward, they went down to the harbor, while Jamie’s stepmother slept in her chair. The tide had come in, covering the sea glass horse. She left Finn hunting for shells while she took Callan out for a sailing lesson. He learned quickly, his hands deft and easy on the ropes and the helm. As they turned back he gave her a keen look and asked her what had happened on Lindisfarne. When she told him about Lowry and Rena he was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “Well, it’s done. Knowing about it doesn’t change it.”
“But how do we live with it?” Jamie said. “How are we supposed to live with her?”
“You don’t have to,” Callan said. “She’s one of a handful of people in an empty world.”
“I want her to go away.” Jamie knew she sounded like a petulant child. “I just want her to disappear so that I never have to think about her again.”
“Life isn’t usually that convenient,” Callan said, then turned the conversation with a question about the ropes.
• • •
Jamie’s edginess persisted throughout the day. Her thoughts wouldn’t settle, picking and worrying at everything the other woman had said, everything Lowry had said about her. Her unease seemed to permeate the whole house. Finn was on edge, all nervous gestures and quick glances. Her stepmother was restless, unable to get comfortable in her chair, pain holding her to wakefulness long after Finn had padded off to bed.
The headland had sunk into a shadowy backdrop behind the room’s reflection in the window, where another Jamie sat with another stepmother. The faces of those mirror-selves were shadowed and vague, and Jamie could have been looking through the glass into any one of the many times she’d sat in this room. Perhaps she’d just told her stepmother that she was leaving, heading out to a new world, leaving her old one unresolved. Perhaps it was the night her mother died.
When her stepmother leaned back in her chair and quietly asked, “What happened?” Jamie flailed for a moment, as though she’d lost her place in a book. That question could relate to this now, or to any one of the others that she’d glimpsed through the darkened glass.
What happened?
Why did you stop talking to us?
Why wouldn’t you see your mother?
“On Lindisfarne,” her stepmother added. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
Jamie felt off-balance, out of time. That perfectly straightforward question had thrown up a whole host of possible meanings. And most of them came back to one thing.
Perhaps everyone had some hard husk of a memory deep inside them, shifting and scratching with everything that happened. Perhaps that was how it was for Rena.
Jamie tried to push that thought away, but she could feel an odd, uncertain emotion. It certainly wasn’t forgiveness, it wasn’t understanding, but it could have been the first stirrings of something that might one day grow into either or both.
She shook her head, answering the simplest version of that question. “Just something from a long time ago. It’s done.”
• • •
When Jamie woke in the night she couldn’t work out what it was that had snapped her from sleep. She fumbled for awareness, her mind struggling to catch up with her senses. And then the sound came again, and she sat up, her tired fug falling away in an instant.
Gunshots. Distant, but unmistakable.
She got up and looked out the window, her pulse thudding, dull and ominous.
Nothing.
She found Finn out in the hallway, clutching the neck of his pajamas.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Go back to bed. I’m just going to the harbor.”
“It was a gun. They had guns on Pangaea. They shot birds.”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s probably it.”
She dressed and went down to the harborside, where she found Callan. The wind had blown up, and the stones were slippery from the hard leap of waves against the wall.
“It came from up the coast,” he said.
“Lindisfarne.” She voiced the thought that had been lurking in the back of her mind since she’d opened her eyes.
“I think so.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a gun,” she said. “Maybe it was something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get the boat ready.” Callan turned and walked back toward the cottage.
She was just unwinding the mooring rope of the launch when he returned, holding a couple of waterproof jackets, his face set in grim lines.
“My gun’s gone.”
“What?”
He climbed down into the boat. “It was in its holster in the side pocket of my rucksack. I didn’t check before now. She must have taken it. Maybe it was when we stopped at Walton Hall.”
There it was. She.
She pulled on the jacket he handed her and fired up the motor. Just as she was about to kick it into gear, a figure came stumbling down the steps.
“Finn.” Callan stood up, setting the boat rocking. “Go home.”
Finn sat down on the edge of the jetty, his mouth a stubborn pucker.
“You can’t come,” Jamie said. “We don’t know what’s going on.”
But he was already scrambling down into the boat, almost overbalancing in the process.
Callan swore and grabbed his arm, shoving him into a seat. “Sit there and don’t move.”
“He can’t . . .” Jamie began, but Callan rounded on her.
“We don’t have time to argue about it. Just go.”
• • •
Jamie opened the engine up for the first mile or so, battering them on into the wind and waves. As they drew closer they could see lights near the old abbey.
“How quietly does this thing run?” Callan asked.
“It’s almost silent on its lowest speed.”
“Might be a good idea to throttle back, then.”
The reduced pace was torturous. Jamie found that she was drumming her fingers on the helm, echoing the rhythm of the faster faster faster that was running through her mind. She was so focused on their destination that she didn’t notice the change in conditions until Callan said, “Wind’s dropping.” The spiky waves had smoothed to vague furrows. There was still the odd gust, but there was little conviction behind it, and she could already feel the settling calm that would greet the dawn.
They were approaching the end of the island, and Callan kept his voice low. “Where do we land?”
Jamie hesitated, shifting her hands on the tiller. “There’s the harbor in the middle, but that’ll take longer, and anyone looking out from the retreat will see us. Might be better to beach it here. It’s a shallow slope, so we shouldn’t damage the hull.”
“Okay.”
They were about a hundred meters out, and when she turned the engine off, the current drifted them toward the shore. Just as they ran up onto the shingle, she thought she saw a shadow moving on the sea, a little distance away. When she tried to focus, it slid away into the darkness. She swiped her hand across her eyes, which were stinging from the sea spray, and then swung her legs over the side, splashing down into the shallows to tie the rope around a spike of rock.
“Stay with the boat,” Callan said to Finn, as he joined Jamie on the shore.
They stepped carefully over the rocks and up to the cottages at the edge of the village, where Jamie tried to pick up the pace. Callan put his hand on her arm.
“Careful.”
As soon as they stepped into the lane it was clear that the moment for caution had passed. Lowry was lying in the road, his head cradled in the lap of a middle-aged, tonsured man. The monk—Brother Xavier, she assumed—saw Jamie and raised his free hand in a weak gesture.
“Help us.”
Jamie stumbled across the distance between them and fell to her knees. Lowry’s eyes were open, and he tri
ed to smile when he saw her, but the attempt was shanghaied by pain. Blood was soaking through his shirt, staining his side red-black.
“What happened?”
“Rena.” It was Brother Xavier who answered. There was a patch of blood on his sleeve. “I heard voices and I came out and found Lowry trying to stop her. She shot him, and when I shouted, she shot at me too.”
“Stop her from doing what?”
Lowry shifted, as though he was going to try and sit up, but the monk pressed him down again. The old man groaned and clutched at his side. “You have to stop her. I didn’t realize. I thought she might harm herself, but I didn’t think . . .” He gave another groan, his whole body convulsing around the bullet wound, his eyes closing.
Callan leaned down to grip the old man’s hand. “Lowry. Stay with us. What’s she going to do?”
Lowry took a couple of rasping breaths and opened his eyes again, staring up at the sky. For a horrible moment Jamie thought those breaths had been his last, and then he coughed and focused on Jamie.
“That pack from her lab. It wasn’t just a test kit. I saw it. There are vials, serums.”
Realization hit her hard in the stomach, as though Rena had left another bullet waiting for her. “The virus.”
Lowry tried to speak, but his words were lost in another spasm of coughing. It was Brother Xavier who answered. “She said she was going to finish what had been started. That God wanted everyone gone, so he could start again. She said . . .” His voice caught a little. “‘I am become Death.’”
Jamie stood up, staring along the lane. A figure was jogging back from the direction of the harbor. For a moment she froze, and then her vision cleared and she saw the rangy frame of Brother Dominic. He was breathing hard, his robe caught up above his knees.
“I couldn’t find her.” He turned to his brother monk. “You’re sure she was going to the boats?”
Brother Xavier nodded. “She said she was going to be a fisher of souls.”
“Where’s she going?” Callan said. “Why didn’t she just infect herself? Let things take their course?”
Jamie was replaying that confrontation earlier in the day, a cold understanding breaking over her.
“God’s breath on the wind. It’s not just us she wants to kill. She’s trying to finish everyone. She’s going out to the turbines.”
For a moment the low shiver of the waves was the only sound. The faces of the four men were frozen into silver-white masks, the shadows and hollows stark in the moonlight. Jamie’s own face was numb, and she couldn’t work out what expression she was wearing.
“The range isn’t big enough.” There was a crack of doubt running through Callan’s voice.
“We have to go after her.” Jamie’s frozen inertia cracked, and she felt a surge of tight energy. She turned and set off back toward the path between the cottages.
Callan caught up with her as she reached the shore, the crunch of the shingle too loud beneath their feet. “She’s got a head start. She may be there already.”
“She must have taken a dinghy. There were no launches in the harbor. We can catch her.”
“And then what?” They’d reached the boat, and Callan threw his weight against the hull, shoving it out into the shallows as Jamie scrambled in. “She’ll hear us coming, and she’s got my gun.”
“I don’t know.” Jamie lurched down the boat to pull the engine cord, then stopped. “Finn.”
He was crouched in the stern, his knuckles white as he clung to one of the gunwales. She’d forgotten he was even there, and they were already drifting clear of the shore.
“Shit.” She pulled the cord and the engine burred into life. “Shit.”
“Focus,” Callan said.
As she turned them out to sea, the turbines were just visible in the distance, silver-white in the moonlight, their great blades stirring the darkness, soundless and steady.
“We don’t know which one she’s gone to,” Jamie said.
“Aim for the nearest,” Callan said. “We’ll see the boat when we get closer.”
After they’d been going for a couple of minutes, he pointed to the base of the closest turbine, where Jamie could just make out a blurred shadow. As she adjusted the tiller, the launch gave a sputtering groan, and then all engine noise fell away, leaving them drifting in near silence.
The tank.
“We’re out of oil.” Her voice sounded dull and flat.
Callan picked up the emergency paddle and slid it over the side. “Then we row.”
“It’ll take too long.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Jamie stared out across the dark sea.
“Yes,” she said.
She stripped off her sailing jacket, shivering as the chill of the night air brushed her bare arms. Then she pulled off her boots and her jeans. Finn stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Stay with Callan,” she said, unnecessarily, and then she swung herself over the side and into the sea.
It was colder than she expected, and she floundered, her face dipping below the surface. She’d never swum this far out, and she had a panicky image of the dark depths below her.
Full fathom five.
The fear twisted into a stab of adrenaline, and she kicked up and away from the boat, surfacing straight into the strongest front crawl she could summon up, snatching her breaths between the waves. As the turbine grew closer, looming over her, she kept her head down, terrified that she might see Rena staring back at her, gun poised.
Her leg scraped against something hard and sharp-edged, and she stopped, treading water, her hand going down to her shin. It didn’t hurt, but she was fairly sure that was just the cold. She was right under the turbine, and when she felt cautiously around with her toes, she felt the rough foundations, slippery with weed. She stood up in the waist-deep water above the concrete base, barnacles crunching beneath her bare feet. Her wet hair dripped strings of freezing seawater between her shoulder blades as she waded over to the steps, where Rena’s boat was tied up. When she looked back, she could just about make out the boat, a darker patch of shadow against the sky, but she didn’t dare risk a sign to Callan.
She scrambled up the steps and crouched down by the turbine’s central frame, peering up the round metal staircase that disappeared into the darkness. There was no sign of Rena. Perhaps she was already sliding a vial into the valves. Or maybe she was crouching on the stairs, bloodshot eyes flared wide in the darkness, gun pointing down. It took every bit of will Jamie possessed to move toward the staircase. She was racked tight with tension, waiting for the blaze of a gunshot and the flare of agony as it entered her chest.
Nothing.
She stepped up onto the first steel-mesh step.
Nothing.
She climbed slowly, feeling for each step as she went. Every instinct was shrieking at her to hurry hurry hurry, but she was terrified of slipping and sending a telltale clang up to the platform above. After the first turn of the stairs she couldn’t see the water anymore, and she had no idea whether Callan was close. She kept climbing, trying to remember the layout of the main platform. Was there any cover when you reached the top of the stairs?
The answer to that question came suddenly, when she rounded another turn and stumbled through a metal-framed doorway onto the platform. Her pulse spiked as she lurched backward, almost toppling down into the dark stairwell below. She clutched at the railing with both hands as her breathing steadied. She’d seen little of the platform in that brief incursion.
A flash of glass on the other side of the space. The window of the control booth?
• • •
Something looming to her left.
A metal railing to the right.
“It’s all right.” Rena’s voice sliced through the silence. “I know you’re there. You can come out. Don’t be afrai
d.”
Jamie froze, options running through her mind, sound-bite swift as news tickers on a screen.
Rush out. Take her by surprise.
Engage her. Talk to her.
Distract her. Grab the gun.
She had to make herself move, or they were all dead. But she’d never been so aware of how breakable she was. All that exposed skin, too thin a layer over the parts of her that had to be kept safe.
She took a deep breath and stepped around the side of the doorway.
Rena was crouched over a cluster of machinery to the left-hand side of the platform, looking gray and sickly in the artificial light. Above her head a heavy metal pipe rose to meet the central frame, just below the massive turning pin. The gun was in a loose grip in her right hand, while she used her left to turn a dial on the machine.
“Stay there,” she said. “I’m nearly done. I’ll be with you in just a second.”
“Rena.” Jamie’s gaze darted around the platform. Had she loaded the vials yet? Was the virus already moving through the pipes, closer and closer to the distribution filters on the blades? No. The arms weren’t turning. Was it worth rushing her? If she could just see the vial. “You don’t have to do this. I know you believe it’s God’s will, but what if you’re wrong? What if we’re supposed to live, build a new world, just like you said?”
Rena pressed something into place and then stood up, the gun hanging loose in her hand.
“You don’t believe that,” she said, perfectly pleasantly. “You don’t believe in anything, do you?”
A footstep clanged on the stairs, as though someone had stumbled somewhere below them.
Rena peered past Jamie. “Is that Marcus?” she said, a shy smile spreading across her face. “Has Marcus come with you?”
“He’s hurt.” The footsteps were closer, just a turn of the stairs away, or maybe that was a trick of the echoes. She hesitated before adding, “You hurt him. Don’t you remember?”
“We hurt each other.” Rena’s voice sharpened. “People do that, you know.”