She’s right. It’s almost creepy how antique and musty this place is. It reminds me of being inside the church in the Place-in-Between. The light is low, as the windows along the river don’t offer much, especially with the day outside being as grey as dirty dishwater.
My eyes slowly adjust, and I take a moment to assess everything. Nearly every centimeter of the powder-blue walls is covered with framed illustrations of maritime scenes and portraits of naval officers from centuries ago. A massive gold-framed mirror hangs over a black wrought-iron fireplace just to the left of us. We’re definitely the youngest people in here. There’s an elderly couple at the table just in front of us eating mounds of mashed peas and fries, and a couple of older men, deep in conversation, nursing ciders at another table. It’s quiet, but not the type of quiet that seems threatening.
I move toward the bar. A middle-aged black man with a shock of silver hair is wiping the counter with a wet cloth. The glossy wood already gleams like a mirror. He must be doing it just to look busy, more than anything else.
“Do you think that’s Clarence?” Cassandra asks, leaning in close to me. “I don’t see any other bartenders, but you never know if someone is in the back or something.”
I nod. I know what she means. We certainly don’t want to be caught out by going up to the wrong person, especially as we don’t exactly fit the regular pub-going types.
“I’ll go up and find out,” I say. “The two of you can take a seat at that table close to the door. If anything seems off or goes wrong, I’ll raise my right hand and snap my fingers. That will be the signal for you to leave — and fast.”
Lily’s eyebrows draw together in a frown. “This seems risky. And it doesn’t feel right, letting you approach him alone.”
“It’s better than all three of us going up. The chance of someone recognizing one of us is a lot higher if the three of us are standing together,” I say, trying sound as reassuring as possible. “Here goes nothing.”
With reluctant nods, Cassandra and Lily slip away toward one of the tables nearer to the door. I can feel Cassandra’s eyes on the back of my head as I turn on my heel and walk as casually as possible to the bar.
I’m fully aware that Cassandra and Lily won’t actually follow the plan and leave if there’s trouble. Though I have to admit, I would defend my fellow Seers to the death before taking off, too.
The bartender glances up when I’m about ten feet away, even though I’m being as discreet and quiet as possible. I’m struck by a sudden feeling of déjà vu. There’s something intensely familiar about him. As I get closer, a smile spreads across his face, reaching up to his deep-set chocolate eyes. He stops wiping the counter and stands back.
“Yes, young lady?” he says, his voice full of warmth. “Can I help you?” His eyes wander over to Lily and Cassandra as he finishes the question. But I’ve already reached into his thoughts. This is Clarence. He knows exactly who we are. And what we are. Not only that — he’s a member of the CCT and just happens to be the brother of Frederick, Mayor Smith’s driver. Well, that’s a surprise. I always got a good vibe from Frederick.
I smile at him. “You know exactly who I am.”
He lets out a howl of delight. “Indeed! My brother has told me a great deal about you, young Jasmine. He said you’ve got a quick tongue and an even quicker ability to hit a target.”
“Yeah, well, I’m working on the big-mouth bit,” I say.
He bellows with laughter again. I think about telling him I’m totally serious about my smartass mouth but decide against it. It’s probably better if he thinks his brother was exaggerating about that.
“Vashti?” Clarence shouts over his shoulder at the open door behind the bar. “You need to come out. They’re here. The girls are finally here.”
JADE
Amara and I stay in the shed for about an hour after the police and the owner depart. If the female officer was telling the truth, someone will be back to repair the door before the end of the afternoon. And the only reason we were able to get in in the first place was that the door to the shed had been mistakenly left unlocked. That was likely why the older woman was having so much trouble opening it. She’d put the key in and likely locked it without realizing her mistake. If we stay in the shed, we chance getting locked in, and there’s no telling when the owner might be back to open the shed. We very well might be two piles of Seer dust by that time.
“I really don’t love having to go back out there,” Amara murmurs as we peek around the corner of the shed. The afternoon sun is still high in the sky overhead.
“Yeah, I hear you. We have about three hours before the sun sets,” I say, “so either we try to get as close as we can to the school now and hope that we can stay incognito while doing so, or we find a place to hunker down until it’s dark.” My stomach is rumbling uncomfortably. With the time difference, I can’t tell how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. For sure, breakfast before heading to the Place-in-Between was my last meal. I’m so famished, I feel ill.
Amara bites nervously at her bottom lip. “I know we’re protected from the demons, but I’m worried about search drones if we wait until late evening. Their night vision will make it so easy to find us, especially with fewer people out after dark because of the curfew. I say we try to get to Beaconsfield now and hide there.” She swallows hard. “Plus, we’re going to need water. I can’t stay out here another four hours without any. I’m already feeling hugely dehydrated. And if we wait, we might be too weak to even make it to the school later.”
I nod. She’s right. My throat and mouth are desert dry and my head is pounding. At least Amara’s anger seems to have abated. Or maybe she’s just in survival mode at the moment. Either way, I’m relieved.
“Should we should try to contact Mr. Khan or the others before heading there? In case we arrive after classes are over?” Amara asks as we duck behind a line of scrubby bushes a few streets away from the shed. It’s nearly impossible to remain completely hidden because of the lack of green foliage.
I flatten my body up against the backyard fence behind us and squat down on my haunches. The bushes give us some protection at least, and there doesn’t seem to be much activity happening in the houses around here. I’m guessing most people are probably still at work.
“I’ll try to reach Mr. Khan,” I say. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have classes on Thursday afternoons, other than combat and cross-training, so he should be able to answer.” I punch in urgent mode so Mr. Khan will be alerted to the critical nature of the call.
One ring, two, three … Amara squats down beside me but continues scanning the area around us. Aside from a scraggly orange-and-white cat that looks like it hasn’t eaten in about a decade, the area appears empty, but we can’t be too cautious at this point. The last thing we need is to have someone pass by and overhear me speaking to Mr. Khan.
Mr. Khan’s face pops up on the screen. His cheeks are flushed and his dark eyes are wild with worry.
“I hope I didn’t disturb your instruct—”
“I can’t speak to you,” he interjects breathlessly. “And as soon as I end this call, you need to get rid of this video watch. ASAP.”
“But Amara and I —”
“No buts. I need to go. And so do you. They mustn’t find me, especially not speaking to you or any other Seer, so I’ll make this quick. The two of you need to try to transition, to go back to London. The membrane between the worlds is so thin, it’s nearly non-existent, so it is my hope that you can just flip straight to contemporary London. Think of modern landmarks. Look at images on Amara’s video watch if you need to just before you try to transition. And, for the love of the world and all its inhabitants, put the ring back as soon as you get there, Jade.” The anger in his voice is palpable.
My heart stops for a moment. How does he know I have the ring?
“But …” I begin.
“No buts. And, whatever you do, do not contact me again.” He glances over his shoulder a
t something behind him, then turns back, his face flickering for a moment on the screen before being swallowed by blackness.
“What the eff is up with him?” Amara asks, wiping at her forehead. “That was a really messed-up conversation. Though I’m with him about the ring and being pissed at you.” She leans back against the wall. “What do we do now?”
I pause. My head is still spinning from the conversation with Mr. Khan, and my body is shaky. Pretty ironic that my Protector has apparently ditched me. Totally contradictory to the job description, if you ask me. And how did he know about the ring? Who could’ve told him?
“I don’t know, but he was pretty adamant about getting rid of this,” I say, slipping my video watch off my wrist and throwing it into the middle of the overgrown lawn that stretches out in front of us. Since electric and gas-powered mowers have been prohibited, most lawns are now just a tangle of long yellowed grass. “Something’s definitely up. Who would be telling Mr. Khan he can’t speak with us?”
“Maybe Ms. Samson did, because you took the ring,” Amara says, her voice flat.
“I say we still need to check out Beaconsfield, maybe even more so now, before we try to get to London. Something’s definitely not right.” I purposely ignore Amara’s quip about the ring, because it would be useless for us to get into things right now. Down deep, though, I worry that she might be right.
Amara looks doubtful. “If we’re not supposed to contact Mr. Khan, and he’s telling us to try to transition to London as soon as we can, then I think we should do that.” She looks me in the eye. “I’m not one to ignore what our Protectors tell us to do.”
The ring pulsates in my pocket as if reminding me of what I’ve done.
“Listen,” I say, “there are two sides to everything. I mean, how do we know that the people we’ve been listening to really have our best interests at heart? Raphael just came into our lives, boom, like that, and we followed what he said without question. Same with his sister. Do you not find that odd?”
Amara glares at me. “Are you talking about our Protectors, as well? Are you implying the same thing about them? My father has studied the texts about us, the Seers, for decades. He doesn’t …” She pauses, tears welling up in her eyes. “He didn’t tell Vivienne and me everything, but one thing for certain is that our Protectors can be trusted. No, they need to be trusted. They were Seers themselves, don’t forget. And Raphael is the reason you’re back here at all. He guided your sister, Lily, and Cassandra to you. Or did you conveniently forget that in the year since you’ve been back? Do you think they would have been able to find you or navigate the Place-in-Between without —”
Amara’s rant is cut short by the sound of fast-moving wheels crunching along the gravel of the alleyway behind us. The vehicles screech to a stop. Multiple doors slam, followed by heavy footsteps.
“The signal is over there. Behind the house,” says a voice directly behind us on the other side of the fence. “They might still be in the vicinity.”
I stare into the garden at the grassy patch ahead of us where I threw my video watch. Mr. Khan was right. We’re being tracked like foxes in a hunt. We should’ve left this area immediately after I tossed it. I honestly thought we’d have more time than this.
Amara’s eyes are wild with panic. “What are we going to do?” she whispers. “They’re going to find us for sure as soon as they get over the fence.”
I open my mouth to reply, but no words emerge because I have no solution. Amara’s right. The house is going to be surrounded in a few seconds, and we’ll probably be apprehended under the Anti-Terrorism Act shortly after that. Or we’ll simply be shot dead, with the police claiming self-defence and coming up with a tidy story to justify our murders.
JASMINE
A tiny woman emerges from the doorway. She’s so slim that from a distance she could almost be mistaken for a child if it weren’t for her deeply lined face. Long, glossy black hair streams down her back like water.
“Jasmine,” she says as she steps forward. Her walk is slow, a careful shuffle, as though she’s in some pain. Stacks of golden and jewelled bangles cover her slender wrists and jingle like wind chimes in the breeze as she moves toward me.
I reach into her thoughts. She’s riddled with bone cancer that had been kept at bay since she was a young woman, but in the last year or so, the drugs have stopped working. Her time is short. Our planet’s time is also short, unless something changes soon. The Seer and Protector communities are counting on me to help change that.
“What can I possibly do?” I ask, realizing a moment too late that I’ve actually said the words out loud.
Vashti smiles at me. Her smile is wide and bright, despite her immense pain. “Call your friends over. We’ll go upstairs for tea. Clarence will stay down here and keep an eye on the house. Right, Clarence?” she says, covering her mouth as she lets out an almost girlish giggle.
Clarence smiles warmly back at her and winks. “Yes, Mum,” he answers with a nod of his head. “I’ll give you the warning signal if anything seems amiss.”
I wave at Cassandra and Lily to come join me. They’ve both had their eyes glued to me the entire time and immediately jump up to cross the room.
“This is Vashti, and this is Clarence.” I nod toward both of them. Vashti smiles at Lily and Cassandra while Clarence extends a strong hand toward each of them in turn.
“We’re so glad you’ve made it this far,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Vashti will tell you more upstairs, but we were very worried we’d never actually lay eyes on the three of you.”
We follow Vashti down into the cellar of the pub, a damp, dungeon-like cavern where the smell of the ocean nearly overwhelms me. It’s so strong that it wouldn’t surprise me to find out the walls are lined with dead fish, with a few medieval pirates thrown in. The cellar is also incredibly dark, and so we walk single file behind Vashti, who leads the way with a high-powered flashlight. Once we reach the other side of the cellar, she unlocks a modern sliding door with fingerprint identification to reveal a flight of incredibly narrow and winding wooden stairs that have been polished to a high gloss.
Lily sucks in her breath in awe as the staircase becomes brightly lit with a solitary wave of Vashti’s hand. I’ll admit to being both surprised and impressed as well.
At the top of the stairs, there’s another sliding door activated by fingerprint recognition. As Vashti presses the four fingers of her right hand against the touchpad, she glances over her shoulder at us.
“Anything said past this point must stay between us and the walls of this flat. Do you understand?” she asks, her voice solemn.
I nod. I should be feeling apprehensive about being taken to a place with a single escape route that can be activated only by this woman — a woman we met less than ten minutes ago — but something tells me we’re safe with Vashti. I hope my Seer intuition is right.
The stainless steel doors slide open, revealing a light-filled, spacious apartment. Enormous skylights take up at least half of the ceiling. There’s a bed in one corner, and a full wall of 3-D plasma screens. They appear to be playing different international news stations; the one closest to us is playing the BBC World News headlines on a loop.
Vashti steers us toward a sitting area with deep leather chairs and a crimson-red couch before heading into the kitchenette area to put a kettle on the stovetop. “Have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, please,” I murmur. Lily and Cassandra also make sounds of agreement. My stomach is rumbling uncomfortably. I hope that some food will be offered along with the tea, and I’m pretty sure they’re wishing the same. Between the slight shift in time when travelling back from the Place-in-Between and how long it’s been since we ate breakfast in Toronto before we even went there, I’m starved.
Taking a seat on one of the leather chairs, I lean back and look around. The apartment is open and airy, completely different from the darkness of the pub below us.
<
br /> Vashti brings over a tray containing a plate piled high with cookies, a pot of tea, and four mismatched cups. “Cassava biscuits,” she says with a smile. Her hand shakes ever so slightly as she attempts to place the tray on the low, glass-topped coffee table in front of us.
Cassandra leans forward. “Let me do that for you,” she says, gently taking the tray from Vashti and putting it down. “The cookies look really great,” she adds. Her eyes reflect the same raw hunger that I suspect mine do.
“Thank you,” Vashti says, easing herself into the other leather chair with a sigh. She leans over, picks up the teapot, and begins to pour the tea. “Please, help yourself to some biscuits,” she says, with a nod toward the tray.
The three of us reach for the tray at once like a flock of lunging seagulls. If I weren’t so hungry, I’d be embarrassed. But as it is, I stuff nearly all of the first cookie into my mouth, barely giving myself time to chew.
Vashti watches us eat and gulp down the hot tea. Her enormous brown eyes radiate a motherly gentleness from under their canopy of slightly sagging skin. My tongue initially burns from the heat of the tea, but the warmth feels good as it hits my stomach.
After allowing us three or four minutes to stuff our faces in silence, Vashti clears her throat with purpose.
Lily and I stop and place our partially eaten cookies and teacups back on the table. Cassandra continues to chomp on her third cookie, a fourth one clutched in her right hand, until Vashti clears her throat again, this time much more loudly.
Cassandra stops chewing and looks up at the three of us. With a sheepish grin, she chases the last of the cookie down with some tea before placing the other one onto the edge of the plate.
“Now we must talk,” Vashti says.
Lily and Cassandra are sitting on the couch directly across from me. We quickly glance at each other. This is unknown territory. We need to be ready for anything. After all, we’re in a foreign country without proper identification and wanted as terrorists.
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