by Rachael Craw
Lights flicker above me and I stare at her hollow eyes. “Is this a joke?”
Miriam says nothing.
My head swims. “It is a joke.”
A tinkling sound sings above our heads.
Miriam looks up at the chandelier.
“Jamie.” Barb’s anxious voice.
“It’s not true,” I say.
A light bulb flickers out, then a second and third.
“Jamie!” Leonard, that time.
“Easy, love.” Jamie looms in front of me, his hands either side of my face, but the hum rises and the droplets dance, the whole foyer shimmering with moving light. “Listen to me.” Jamie crushes me to him then lifts me from the ground. The foyer blurs and he carries me, shoulder barging the doors to his father’s office. “Everton, listen to me. Hey, hey, come on.” He kisses my face, presses his forehead to mine. “Easy, love. Stay with me.”
“Jamie, she’s lying. Why would she lie?”
The door swings slowly back and Kitty stands at the threshold. “Doctor Sullivan’s pulled up.” She holds Miriam’s papers in her hand. “Evs, you need to look at these.”
BLOOD
“I am legally obligated to turn this evidence over to the police.” Doctor Sullivan wipes raindrops from his spectacles before adjusting them on his nose. “I can hold it overnight, perhaps give you a head start, but the authorities will have to be informed by morning or I’ll be in breach of my oath.”
“Give us the bullet points.” I sound brittle. I feel brittle. Kitty sits next to me at the dining table, stroking my arm. Jamie’s on my left, his body so tense I imagine if I tapped him with a tuning fork, his skin would ring. Grey-faced, Miriam sits opposite me, Leonard and Barb either side of her. I can tell Barb is holding Miriam’s hand beneath the table, like moms have to stick together.
It took me a good hour to calm down, look at Miriam’s papers and agree to hear what the doctor said, and now I regret the waste of those minutes. We might only have the night to act.
“I took your blood samples as a reference point to help me map the markers of the original sample from Kitty’s attack. Extremely useful exercise. The synthetic gene is wonderfully complex, overlaying the unmodified genome in a marvellous …” he looks up from his folder at our cold faces and clears his throat. “However, due to the complexity of the markers, it took me much longer to map than regular DNA. I had Jamie’s two weeks before yours and Miriam’s, and had a fair idea of the patterns I should expect. But the Stray anomaly maps differently. I was eager to see how your two samples compared with Jamie’s and the original sample, to see how the patterns played out.”
My eyes dry from staring at the sheen on Sullivan’s nose. “And Richard’s?”
“I didn’t get very far with it, my dear, but my initial findings would indicate he has unmodified DNA.”
“But you’re not certain.” I can feel what everyone’s thinking: I’m grasping at straws.
“In light of these results, it’s unnecessary to investigate Mr Dean’s sample any further.” He pauses to let it sink in then presses on. “It was only in the last two days that I started to suspect the familial links. When Miriam came to me last night with her suspicions about the original sample belonging to her son, I adjusted my analysis to map for twin markers. It took most of the night and day but this is what I found.”
He picks up two transparencies covered in lines of code. “This is the original sample from the skin I took from under Kitty’s nails.” He lays it on the white cover of his folder. “This is your sample.” He lays the second sheet over the top, aligning the edges, revealing the matches. “This is Miriam’s.” He places a third transparency on top. “There are slight differences in the maternal code but the key markers remain the same.”
I can feel everybody looking at me. I stare at the official papers spread across the table: Miriam’s faded certificates, an adoption file, a xeroxed black-and-white photo from a school yearbook; Aiden looks about five. His startling eyes stand out and the spray of freckles across his nose. A newspaper cutout details the death of Aiden’s parents, Bailey and Kendy Templar, in a home invasion. Aiden was seven. He escaped through his bedroom window.
Each proof winds me: same birth date, same blood type, same DNA.
“If you would like, I could talk you through the twin markers and how they–”
“No, thank you. I don’t need to see anything else.” I sense the quiet exhale of relief from everyone. I’ve given in.
Doctor Sullivan squints at me through his glasses. “I could check your arm?”
I shake my head, even though the wound aches. “I’m fine and we don’t have a lot of time.”
Leonard gets up. “Thank you, Doctor Sullivan, your help has been …”
I don’t hear the rest.
The doctor gets to his feet, speaking rapidly, waving his hand at the documents. They go out into the foyer and I hear the front door open and close.
I stare at Miriam as though I don’t recognise her. The angles of her face, the shape of her mouth, the curve of her cheekbones, the ghost of my mom, of April. It’s like the parts don’t add up.
“Um, could Miriam and I …”
“Of course.” Kitty rises quickly to her feet, gesturing for her brother and mother to follow. Barb rises up, her hand on Miriam’s shoulder, a gentle squeeze before she steps away. Jamie waits for the others to exit and turns to look at me before closing the doors.
“You never needed to hear this,” Miriam’s voice crackles. “I’m so sorry.”
“We better be quick.”
She lowers her eyes. “I met your father when they took me in for orientation.”
Your father.
Two words put together becoming a foreign, inconceivable thing.
April had told me he was a boy she met at a college party, she didn’t even know his name … too much drink. She pitched it as the best-worst night of her life because I was the greatest gift she had ever been given. Of course, that last part now seems like a bit of a hint.
“Your Synergist.”
She nods.
“What’s his name?”
“I can’t tell you.” She brings her hands up on the table and clasps them together. “It wouldn’t be safe.”
“What?”
“An unsanctioned affiliation between Synergists producing unsanctioned offspring?” She presses her lips together.
I read horrible things into the silence.
“They’re much stricter now,” she says, “keeping male and female operatives apart.”
“How did you keep it from them at all?”
“Your father got me an assignment that allowed me to go off-radar. I went to the UK, April came with me. She returned home with you and the boy went to the Templars.”
“Mom knew what you were?”
“I told her everything.”
“That I might be like you?”
“She wanted you very much, Evie. She wanted you like I wanted you.”
The questions back up; the confronting sense memory of the moving lump I had Harvested from Miriam, misinterpreting it as Mom’s, as April’s. “Was she even a gene carrier?”
“She was. She had a fifty-fifty chance of producing offspring with AFS. Your mother was far more sensible and careful than me. Once I told her about everything, she would never have gotten herself – she knew she would never have children of her own, so she took you without a second thought.”
“Why not keep Aiden?”
“Boys are more likely to be Strays.” Miriam whispers the illegal term and lowers her head. “Exposure to active frequencies can activate Priming. It would have been too dangerous for Aiden to be near me at all.”
“Giving him up didn’t do him any favours.”
She winces. “I took Fretizine throughout the whole pregnancy. We hoped it would neutralise the synthetic gene, that you would simply be carriers.”
“Why bother? You could have had an abortion.”
; “No, no, I could never …” She closes her eyes. “I couldn’t live with myself.”
“You can live with this?”
She covers her face. “I loved you the moment I knew you existed–”
I slam my hands on the table and shove my chair back. “That doesn’t help me! It sure as hell doesn’t help your son!” Black fog swirls, and I grip the table.
All her safeguards. The sacrifices. For nothing.
A tap on the door and Jamie’s head appears. “We need to move.” His eyes dart between us, and I rise to my feet, feeling weak and giddy.
“Jamie, hang on. I need to get my head around this.”
He closes the door behind him, approaching with caution in his eyes. “Nothing has changed. It was too late for Aiden the moment he touched Kitty.”
The nightmares flicker in my head. The feeling of being lost in my own mind, eaten up on the inside by terrible thoughts. If they’re more than dreams, if they’re some kind of sick, psychic, twin-related KMH then I can’t deny it. Aiden is lost.
My brother.
Jamie squeezes my shoulder. “Nobody expects you to raise a hand against your brother. You stay here with Kitty. Miriam, obviously we don’t expect you to be involved in this, but I have to move now. If he gets wind he’s been identified, he’ll disappear and we’ll be back to square one, waiting for his next attack. If I go now, I can deactivate him.”
Deactivate.
A bland euphemism.
I can’t articulate the clash of feeling inside me. “Why not let the police …”
A gently incredulous look fills his eyes. “You think he’d let them take him?”
I open my mouth and close it again.
“Three times he’s come after her,” Jamie says.
“I know, I know. You’re right. It’s just–” I turn to Miriam, hoping for what?
She shakes her head, tears streaming. “There’s nothing we can do to save him. It’s all my fault.”
“I called the boarding house,” Jamie says. “The dean said he’s in his room … I need to go now.”
I grip Jamie’s arm. “It’s early. There’ll be kids around.”
“No one will know I’m there.”
Chilled by his certainty, I release him.
Jamie turns to my aunt. “You should probably go.”
“I’ll stay.”
He looks for a moment like he’ll press his point but then he concedes with a nod. “I want Kitty in the panic room while I’m gone and everyone on alert. Keep her there until I can give you confirmation.”
Code for, I’ll let you know when your brother is dead.
Miriam looks up from the table, her face desolate. “Don’t let him suffer.”
I can’t feel my legs as I follow Jamie out into the foyer. I can’t swallow for the lump in my throat. It’s all moving too fast. He zips up a black backpack waiting at the foot of the stairs; I don’t want to know what’s in it.
Kitty stands with her parents at the entrance to the living room, her dove eyes huge and glistening with tears. She looks terrified. Leonard, as pale as I have ever seen him, stares at his son with unreadable eyes. Barb sobs quietly in her husband’s arms.
After all these weeks of preparation, to be doing nothing, to think of sitting and waiting while Jamie goes out to take care of things. The roar of adrenaline almost deafens me and, impossibly, I feel an irrational urge to warn Aiden, but to wish him safe is to wish Kitty dead. Synaptic treason.
I could never wish that.
I never will.
“No. No. This isn’t right. I should go too.”
Jamie slings his backpack over his shoulder and goes to his sister. His lips move and he rubs her arms then he takes her by the hand and they come towards me in slow motion. He deposits Kitty beside me, cups my cheek, his eyes tight with regret and determination.
“I should do it,” I say. “This is my responsibility.”
“And what would it do to Miriam if you did?” he says. “What would it do to you once the Fixation Effect is gone?”
“I could live with it.”
“You shouldn’t have to. No one should.” He lets his hand fall. “Keep her safe.”
The sound of the door closing echoes in my hollow chest.
STATIC
“If Aiden had never met me, he’d be normal,” Kitty says. “I’m like an infection, destroying people’s lives.”
“Kitty.” Barb turns in Leonard’s arms.
“That’s bullshit,” I say. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s not your fault? Now, go to the bathroom.” It seems like sensible advice. “You’ve got five minutes then you’re in lockdown.”
She shudders and turns to the stairs like her feet are cast in lead. I watch her all the way up to the landing, wishing there was something I could say that would make a difference. The bandwidth has emptied, adrenaline drains away. I feel bloodless, lifeless with the drop in energy. “Mr and Mrs Gallagher, Jamie wants us to be on alert while he’s away.”
“I’ll watch the gate,” Leonard says. “Barb’ll stay with Kitty.”
Barb reaches for my hand, looking tortured. “I’m so sorry … your brother … I wish there was something …”
“I’m going to go get changed.” I withdraw my hand gently and jog upstairs, fleeing sympathy, ignoring the pain in my bicep.
It’s a forty-minute drive to Gainsborough. I have no idea how long it will take for Jamie to locate Aiden. I wonder if he will extract him from the boarding house. I doubt he’ll want to take care of things in a building full of kids.
Take care of things.
Aiden’s going to die.
I shake myself. I need to feel ready, even if I just sit here all night and Jamie returns without complication. I need pockets and none of my pants are up to the job. I run back along the landing to Jamie’s room.
It would have been funny in different circumstances, rummaging the shelves in his dressing room for cargo pants. I pull an old pair out and something flutters to the ground. The photo falls face up. Jamie and Helena – the picture Barb showed me. Did she take it from his room without him knowing? Put it back here? Is he hiding it? Looking closely at it now, Helena looks older than me, grinning in her snow gear, cheek pressed to his, the mountains behind them. Such blue eyes. I think of Jamie’s parting words in the foyer, that no one should have to go through this. And here she is, his ticket out. Feeling heavy in my chest, I return it to the shelf and go back to my room.
The pants are loose in the waist and too long, but I slide one of my belts through the loops and roll the hems. I change my bulky sweatshirt for a fitted black turtleneck, burning my bicep with the movement. To complete the sense of ritual, I secure my hair in a ponytail. I don’t look in the mirror. I can’t bear to see my face.
Back in the hall, I meet Kitty coming from her room. She is pale, journal tucked under her arm, iPod clutched in her hand. She gives a tremulous smile, lifting her eyebrows at my pants. “You make those look good. Very Lara Croft.” Her voice falters as she sees me glaring at her journal. “No letters. I promise.”
I fumble in my back pocket for the piece of paper I’ve brought from my room. I hand it to her. “Write more of these.”
She unfolds it, biting her lips, and stares at her crumpled To Do list. Her eyes well up. “This is kind of embarrassing.”
“It’s a good list.”
We stand there staring at the piece of paper.
“Evie.” Leonard appears at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a thick parka. “Can I have a word?”
Kitty and I make our way downstairs. Barb comes from the living room. “I’m with you, sweetie.” She circles her daughter’s shoulders, her smile tight and thin. “You know where to find us.” Kitty squeezes my wrist and goes with her mother. Leonard nods me towards his office and I follow.
He drops into his chair, his parka shushing as he sits. On his laptop screen, six security footage windows show images of the grounds: shrubs shake in the wind,
trees flail wild limbs, rain falls in torrents. “I’ll be here.” He points to the bottom corner, which shows the front gate. “But I’ll patrol along the east border to here.” He points at the window above.
“The weather’s miserable.” I cringe. “You don’t have to. I’m sure Jamie won’t be long.”
“I want to feel useful, Evangeline. Just this once.” Leonard adjusts his glasses and looks up at me with his son’s grey eyes. “Let me see your watch.”
I lift my wrist and he taps the screen and turns the face, then does the same with his. “We’ll be able to stay in audio contact.”
I swallow.
“You’ll want a gun?” he says.
“I was going to ask.”
He turns to the safe beneath his desk. He taps an access code and the hydraulic release pops the door. He pulls out two silver handguns and extra clips of ammunition, lays them on his blotter and holds one up for me. He shows me the gun is loaded and how to work the safety latch. “It’s basic point and shoot.”
I take it from him; the cool weight of it makes me shiver. I slip the spare clip in a pocket on my left thigh. “Will I blow my leg off if I keep it in here?” I unzip the big pocket on my right thigh.
“Not if the safety’s on.”
I walk with him to the foyer. He tucks the other gun in the back of his belt, pulling the long parka down over it. The rain sounds terrible. It makes me nervous, the way it muddies the bandwidth, interfering with the pulse of the tether.
Leonard pulls me into his arms, a quick crushing hug, planting a kiss on the top of my head. He goes out the door, misty-eyed behind his glasses.
I turn to the dining room, bracing inwardly to face Miriam, but she isn’t in there. I check my watch. Jamie has only been gone a quarter of an hour. My pins and needles crackle and I curse the rain. I push through the swing door, the smell of another forgotten meal grown cold on the stovetop.
My stomach growls.
Miriam leans on the sink.
A gun lies on the counter beside her.
“You should eat,” she says.
I don’t argue. Crossing to the oven I nab a cold potato and stuff it in my mouth. My body needs fuel and I stay there, working my way through the roast vegetables, pretending not to feel Miriam behind me, trying not to hear the swelling silence.