by Erin Grey
“It’s ok,” I said. “I haven’t been around long, and I likely won’t be around much longer. I know how hard it is to make friends, especially when you already know they’re not going to stay. We don’t have to be friends, Ju. But I’d appreciate it if you could be patient with me and polite. All of this is new to me. And … very strange. Just give me a chance. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
Ju watched me thoughtfully, then gave a half-shrug, half-nod. “That’s ok,” she said and went back to pretending to read her tablet.
Quirinus did not look satisfied with her response, but I shook my head briefly and he backed off.
“Why don’t you finish your breakfast—or should I say lunch—and then practise a little more?” he suggested.
“I think I will,” I said with a broad smile.
A wave of pleasure washed over me, and I looked up to see Aidon and Ric walk in.
“You’re back,” said Aidon. “I trust you slept well, then?”
“Like the dead,” I replied. “Must have been all that hard work yesterday. But all I want to do today is practise.”
“Glad to hear it.” Aidon smiled. “How is it going?”
“I think I’m getting it,” I said enthusiastically. “Although there’s a long way to go still.”
“You’ll pick it up,” said Ric. He grinned impishly. “Any chance you can grow me some Madison? I have a hankering for some of those cakes Quirinus makes, but with a special touch.”
Aidon jabbed his elbow into Ric’s side, evoking a grunt from him.
“What’s Madison?” asked Ju with the typical young teen’s talent for sensing trouble.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” said Quirinus, sweeping Ric, Aidon, and me into the tiny kitchen. He stuck a finger in Ric’s face. “If you put that girl within ten centimes of Madison or any other mind-altering rubbish, I will make sure you acquire something you never thought to acquire before!”
Ric backed away with hands raised in surrender. “Whoa, there, Q. It was only a joke. Ju’s like my little sister. I’d never put her in any danger.”
“Girls her age just need a hint that something is forbidden in order for them to want it desperately. Now, go fix it!”
“That’s because forbidden stuff is usually the best stuff,” said Sandy.
“Chock-lit!” said Emmy.
“Ok, ok, I’m going,” said Ric. He shuffled out of the kitchen with all the enthusiasm of royalty queueing for the guillotine.
“I take it Madison is not something I should be adding to the herb garden?” I said.
“Right.” Aidon sniggered. “Not unless you want Quirinus here going into full Papa-Yewnikrun mode and ripping you limb from limb.”
Quirinus sighed. “I hope you are each blessed with many children with half of Ju’s intelligence.” He grabbed a knife and began sharpening it. “That should keep you busy,” he muttered.
“Well, producing the children certainly would,” sniggered Sandy.
I blushed furiously, eyes snapping to Aidon’s face. Had he heard what I had? The corner of his mouth quirked, and I felt a brush of attraction that was not my own.
“Control yourself,” snapped Jasper. “That is a most improper line of thinking!”
“I like babies,” said Gwendolyn in a dreamy voice. “I like Aidon, too.”
“No,” said Mitch. “What about Him? You’re forgetting.”
“Oh yes,” said Gwendolyn sadly. “We mustn’t forget. We still love Him.”
“Jane?” asked Aidon. “Are you alright?”
Bad, breathed the Deep Dark. You were never worthy of him.
The argument in my head intensified, opinions and emotions flung about like poo by excited chimpanzees.
“You’re very red,” said Aidon.
“Um,” I sputtered and helplessly flapped my hands about, unable to process or regulate the flurry of activity in my mind.
A fern shot out of the bamboo floor between us.
“Oh no,” I stammered. The hand flapping increased. A creeper poked out of the ceiling slats and wound its way towards the floor.
“Jane? What’s going on?”
Lichen popped out all over the cupboards, spreading rapidly.
Aidon grabbed me by the shoulders. “What’s happening to you?”
“I don’t know!” I cried out, but the plants kept coming.
The stone countertop cracked as pink flowers grew around and through it.
“She’s out of control!” barked Quirinus, using a kitchen knife to slash back the sapling that was filling the doorway.
“Stop it!” shouted Aidon. “You have to stop it growing!”
“I can’t!” I shook beneath his hands. “I don’t know why it’s happening!”
“Something’s bothering her,” called Quirinus over his shoulder as he hacked at the creeper winding around his legs.
“Whatever it is, Jane,” said Aidon, gripping me firmly, “let it go!”
“I don’t know how!”
“You’ve got to stop this!” Quirinus shouted. “The Regulators are sure to track this amount of energy!”
I looked up at the sagging slats of the roof, round to the bursting cupboards and bulging walls and floors. Everything covered in green and purple growth that got bigger and taller and longer and thicker every second. Jasper’s instructions to calm down were having no effect, and the ruckus from the others only made things worse.
“Jane!” Aidon gripped my chin and turned it to face him. “When we were on the Calliope in the Suspended Sea, what colour was the captain’s waistcoat?”
“What?” I pulled at his hand, eyes darting to the chaos surrounding us.
“Jane! Look at me! What colour was the captain’s waistcoat?
“The captain’s waistcoat?” I tried to focus on his words. “Was he even wearing a waistcoat? Why are you asking me that?”
“Was it green? Blue?”
“His hat was blue.”
“Yes, I saw that. What about the waistcoat?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t—”
“Good thinking, Aidon.”
Quirinus’ words drew my attention to him. He was panting hard, but no longer racing around chopping down plants. They’d stopped growing.
I turned slowly back to face Aidon. “How did you do that?”
“I distracted you,” he said, releasing my chin and stepping back. “When you cut off from your emotion to understand my words, the energy stopped expressing.” He cocked his head. “What was it that was causing so much feeling?”
I looked away, knowing the shame was blatant as red paint on my face. “I was thinking about home,” I lied. “All the things that stand in the way.”
“All the things you’ll leave behind,” whispered Mitch.
Aidon must have seen the hint of tears in my eyes, because he stepped towards me and folded me in a big bear hug. And, honestly, that made me cry more.
“It’ll be ok,” he soothed, hand gently gliding up and down my back. “It’ll all be ok.”
“No, it won’t,” said Mitch. “It’s never ok.”
37
The bit where I want to believe
I pulled away from Aidon. “I’m sorry,” I said to Quirinus. “I’ve wrecked your kitchen.”
He chuckled. “I’ve often wished I didn’t have to walk so far to find fruits and vegetables.” He gestured towards some bright purple berries growing on a bush beside cracked cupboards.
“I’ll help you fix it.” I moved towards the cupboard, hands reaching for the damaged wood.
Aidon caught my arm. “No,” he said. “I think you and I need to go for a walk. Ric!”
Ric wandered into the kitchen. “Arus! Did something explode?”
“I need you to scan the energy that’s just been released and do whatever you can to mask it. It may not have been strong enough to attract the Regulators, but check it out, will you?”
“Sure thing,” said Ric.
I broke the silen
ce when we were some way from the tree house, ensconced by forest. “You should get rid of me,” I said. “Not only am I putting you all in danger, I’m destroying everything around us. Now I get why Brianus doesn’t want to use his power. I shouldn’t use mine either.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous!” I screamed, channelling Sandy’s strength and stubbornness. “You can’t tell me that what just happened wasn’t dangerous for everyone. What if the roof collapsed?” I wrung my hands as I paced before him. “What if the whole structure had collapsed? Ju, Ric, Quirinus—we’d all be trapped in the rubble, if we survived the fall that is—”
Aidon grabbed my hands, stopping my pacing and holding me still in front of him. “Jane. Breathe.”
“You’re always telling me to breathe!” I wrenched my hands away, but he caught them again instantly.
“Because you don’t listen.” He frowned and tightened his grip. “Are you going to listen now?”
Gwendolyn shoved Sandy aside and, eager to please, forced me to take a deep breath and relax my shoulders.
Aidon’s grip eased. “That’s better,” he said. “Now, do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“No,” snapped Sandy. “We definitely do NOT want to tell you that you’re wonderful and you seem to understand and we’re falling for you—”
“Which is unfeasible,” said Jasper. “Because, not only are we leaving, but it would be disloyal—”
“No,” cried Mitch. “Hurts too much.”
Bad, came the hiss of the Deep Dark.
>BIOS ACTIVE_
>Cache full
>Erasing cache_
“It’s complicated,” I managed.
“Alright.” Aidon let go of me and found himself a comfortable log on which to perch. “Then let’s start with this nonsense of getting rid of you. What on the Great Purple Eorthe makes you think we would do that?”
“I’m trouble.”
“And Ju’s not trouble? Brianus isn’t trouble? The whole TRAG situation isn’t trouble?”
“You were fine before I turned up. You had your safe houses and—”
“We’ve always been on the run,” he interrupted. “Nothing new there.”
“But this time they’re looking for me specifically.”
Aidon smirked. “Isn’t it nice to be wanted?”
“Aidon, stop being so otherwise!” I stomped my foot. Jasper tutted while Gwendolyn hung her head in shame.
Aidon chuckled. “At least it’s a kind of wise.”
“Be serious. I know you were already in trouble with the Regulators when you rescued me, but now they have a tracking device attached to you and its name is J-A-N-E.” I kicked a pebble. “Not to mention my inability to control my emotions, which currently means frenzied plant growth that—best-case scenario—could leave you without a place to sleep, or—worst-case scenario—could inflict serious bodily harm and bring the Regulators down on us!”
He patted the log next to him. “Come sit for a bit.”
A minor altercation occurred between the voices before I decided to obey.
“Why are you so determined to be a martyr?” he asked.
My heart dropped. “A martyr?”
“You want to sacrifice yourself for us, even though we’ve promised to help you. Willingly promised to help you,” he added.
I shrugged. “I just don’t think it’s fair that you should risk everything for me. You don’t even know me.”
He touched the mark on my hand. “We’re linked.”
I gazed at the mark for a second while Gwendolyn wistfully imagined perfect love and lifelong happiness. Then Jasper reminded us of why that was impossible, which flooded Mitch with shame and Gwendolyn with longing.
“It doesn’t mean you should all put yourselves in danger for me.”
“So, we deserve to live and be safe, but you don’t?”
I swallowed. “No, I don’t.”
Aidon’s eyebrows leapt towards his hairline. “You really believe that?”
“It’s true.” I picked at my cuticles. “If anyone is going to get hurt or die or be sacrificed, it should be me.”
Aidon just stared. “What on Eorthe happened to you to make you believe that?”
“I’m not …” The voices were all shouting different things, and I struggled to get a grip on any one thought.
The Deep Dark slipped in.
You’re not worth it. Not enough.
“I’m the extra,” I said.
“What?”
“On Earth,” I began, “we have movies. They’re recordings of stories that you can watch. Anyway, each story has main characters. Usually, there’s at least one hero, a villain that he fights, a mentor who helps the hero … and so on. Sometimes, there’s a scene where the main characters are doing something, but in the background, there are two or three people just … filling up space. They help to create the mood for the scene, like a busy street, or a restaurant or something. They’re called extras. You never discover their names or personalities; they never say anything that you can hear or contribute anything to the story. If one of them isn’t there, no one notices. If there’s a choice between a shot of the main character and a shot of the extra, the main character always wins.” I tore a cuticle, and it started to bleed, so I stuck it in my mouth. “That’s me,” I said around my finger. “I’m the extra.”
Aidon looked at my face, looked at my finger, then rubbed a hand down his own face. “I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” He said it so quietly I almost missed it.
“It’s ok,” I said, not wanting him to be sad. “I’m used to it. It’s just how things are. In my family, Mark, my older brother, was the sportsman. Captain of the rugby team. And he could make everyone laugh. Netty was the clever one. She was popular and won awards and got offered scholarships. The two of them were all my parents needed. I was the youngest and more than a decade late. I tried so hard to live up to the standards they’d set. But I was never as funny or smart or talented. I was the extra.
“They didn’t need me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they loved me. At least, they said they did. But, they had other friends to spend time with, other entertainments to occupy them. Careers. Relationships. I tried so hard to be what they wanted. But there was always something else they wanted more.”
It was mostly Gwendolyn and Jasper in those days, and BIOS. Sandy and Mitch weren’t allowed out much, because there was no place for a rebellious little girl or someone who cried a lot.
“I thought that if I did exactly what I was told, did my best, I’d finally fit in and be enough. But there were always others who were smarter, and funnier, and more popular. If there was a fight or a disagreement, I took the fall, because I thought that would make them like me. It didn’t make any difference.”
Mitch got stronger and his tongue looser. All the emotion he’d stored away, protected for so many years, came pouring out. Every ounce of doing the right thing and stiff upper lip that held him back got washed away.
“It didn’t matter how hard I worked, or how fiercely I tried, or how much I wanted to fit in. It was never enough, never.
“And the funny thing is, I never learned. I kept trying harder and harder. And the trying tore me apart until I didn’t know what was me and what were the pieces I made for them, the masks I wore for them.” I laughed. “I don’t think the real me ever existed. I’m just a cardboard cut-out of what I thought everyone wanted. A few drops of rain and I turned into a soggy mess.”
The tears had started somewhere in the middle of my speech, but I only became aware of them after I’d run out of words. I wiped at them furiously and didn’t dare look at Aidon’s expression.
A strong, warm arm landed around my shoulders and pulled me into an equally strong, warm chest. A sigh gusted across my forehead, sending shivers down my spine. “I don’t know what to say.” His words wafted into my hair, and his arm tightened around me.
&nb
sp; “You don’t need to say anything.” I sniffed. “It’s not your fault I’m broken. I just don’t want any more people getting hurt.”
“Who’s saying that? The Jane you made up to please me? Or real Jane?”
The voices argued for a bit. “I honestly don’t know,” I said.
“And the Jane who causes plants to grow until the house caves in?”
My giggle was watery.
“Because I don’t remember placing an order for that particular Jane.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Is this your way of cheering me up?” I asked.
He exhaled hard, and my head moved with his chest. “This is my way of showing you that the Jane I know is real, not someone you made up.” He brushed the unruly strands of baby hair back over my hairline. “Not a mask.”
We sat quietly as I pondered what he’d said. “I suppose the plant thing must be part of the real me,” I said finally. “It would be the one thing that could actually kill people.”
“Is this why you’re so determined to save them?” Aidon asked. “Because it will finally prove that they do need you?”
“They don’t … it’s not …” His words didn’t fit in my head. Jasper tried facts instead. “My brother and sister can take care of themselves. But my parents—” I choked. “I can’t just let them suffer, not when there’s something I can do about it.”
“But, you love them, don’t you? I can feel it in you. Won’t it hurt to leave them?”
“Hurts anyway,” said Mitch.
“It doesn’t matter what I feel,” I said.
I tried to sit up, but Aidon held on tight. “No,” he said. “I want you to stay there and listen. You’ve made your case. It’s time for the counter-argument.”
“Do we have to?” I whined. Mitch was exhausted after offloading so much of his burden in such a short time.
“Yes,” was the firm reply. “This is important.” He took a deep breath and was quiet so long I thought he’d changed his mind.
Then his lovely clear baritone reverberated out of his chest and seeped into my muscles and bones and deepest concealed organs.