by Teri Terry
That was Mum and Amy.
The bus stops near the end of Mac’s long lane, and I rush up it on foot. Most of me is grappling with what I saw: whose funeral were they attending? A deep feeling of dread settles inside, while some other part of my mind is distracted, processing that the air and sky have that heavy chill about them that say snow, but I’ve never seen snow, and wonder why I feel this sense of expectation. While there must have been snow when I was Lucy, a child growing up in the Lake District, her memories were Slated away.
Another bend and Mac’s house appears: a lone building on a lonely lane. From this vantage a small sliver of white over the high back gate says a van is there: Aiden’s?
I’m expected. A curtain moves, and the door opens as I reach it: Mac.
‘Wow. Is that really you, Kyla?’
‘It’s Riley now,’ I say, going in and wincing as I take off my hat and scarf and chuck them on a chair.
Aiden is there now and sees my face. ‘I told you I could have picked you up. Are you all right?’
I shrug and go past them to the computer down the hall. Skye, Ben’s dog, tries to jump up and lick my face, but I give her a quick pat and push her back. Mac’s computer is an illegal; it isn’t government monitored. I meant to do a general search for local news on the off-chance that funeral was picked up, but something makes me go to MIA’s website first.
Lucy Connor, missing from her home in Keswick since age ten. Recently reported found – I had pushed the button on the screen myself, hoping to find a way back to who I was all those years ago, through whoever reported me missing.
Now clearly marked as ‘deceased’. I stare at the screen, unable to process the word.
A hand touches my shoulder. ‘You’re looking well for a dead person. I like the new hair,’ Mac says.
I turn; Aiden has followed and stands next to him. There is something in his face. ‘You knew,’ I hiss.
He says nothing, and that says it all.
‘Why deceased?’
‘You are. Officially,’ Aiden says. ‘According to government records, you died when a bomb exploded at your assigned home. Lorders have reported you as dead.’
‘But there was no body: Lorders wouldn’t be fooled. The bus went past a funeral procession on the way here; Mum and Amy were following the hearse. Was that my funeral?’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was today.’
‘But you knew. That they think I’m dead.’ I’m angry, but I’m also confused. ‘Why would the Lorders say I died?’
‘Perhaps they don’t want to admit they don’t know what happened to you?’ Mac suggests.
‘I don’t understand why the Lorders would do that.’
Aiden tilts his head to one side. He’s not sure, either: the uncertainty is in his eyes. ‘Perhaps they don’t want to admit they failed,’ he says. Aiden had assumed the bomb at our house had been Lorder, as payback for my role in helping Ben cut off his Levo, and I never set him straight. He doesn’t know the double, dangerous game I’d played, for Lorders and Nico’s AGT. Guilt twists inside at secrets kept; for help repaid by silence. But he keeps his secrets, too.
My eyes fill with tears. ‘I can’t leave Mum and Amy thinking I died in that explosion. I can’t.’
Aiden sits next to me and takes my hands in his. ‘You have to. It’s better this way: they can’t be made to tell what they don’t know.’
I pull my hands away. ‘No. NO. I can’t leave it like this. I didn’t like it when I thought they thought I was missing, but this is far worse! I can’t leave with them thinking I’m dead.’
‘You can’t see them. They may be watched, in case you make contact. It’s too dangerous,’ Aiden says.
‘No one would recognise me any more.’
Aiden shakes his head. ‘Think this through. You’ve got another life waiting for you in Keswick. Don’t throw it away now.’
‘But Mum—’
‘She wouldn’t want you to take the risk,’ he says.
And I fall silent. I know he’s right. If I could take her aside and tell her the whole story and ask her what I should do, she’d say, stay safe. My head throbs and I twist my hair in my hands, flinch as it pulls, then hold it up. Who knew thick hair hurt so much? I ache to lie down, but all this needs dealing with now. Why did MIA put me as deceased because the Lorders said I’m dead?
‘Are you okay?’ Mac asks.
I shrug and flinch with that movement, also. ‘There’s some painkillers in my bag,’ I say, and Mac gets it for me, and a glass of water. I take one.
‘You should rest,’ Aiden says.
‘Not yet. You have to explain something to me first. Why did you put me as deceased on MIA? Do Lorders monitor it – did you do it for them?’
Aiden and Mac exchange a glance. Mac answers. ‘We don’t know they do; the links are hidden and changed frequently. But we can’t have it too hard to get to, or it wouldn’t be useful for those who need it. We assume Lorders monitor the website, and probably do so regularly.’
‘But what about when I reported myself found? Won’t they know?’
Aiden shakes his head. ‘That doesn’t appear anywhere on screen; it notifies MIA. And as I’ve told you before, at length, only the individuals involved in a particular missing person case know about it, and only when they need to know. Listings get taken down when we judge it is safe to do so for all involved.’
I’d quizzed Aiden on this relentlessly already, on who knows where I am now and where I’m going. And I believe him when he says it is all on a need-to-know basis only: he still hasn’t even told me who reported me missing. Though I guess it is my real mother, he won’t say until he judges I need to know. He must’ve thought I was extra paranoid; he didn’t know there was a reason for all my questions. He didn’t know about Nico’s plant in MIA – that I’d spotted one of MIA’s drivers at the terrorist camp. I had to be sure he wouldn’t know I’d reported myself found, and tell Nico. I should warn Aiden about him, but how can I without telling all the rest?
‘But what happens generally when someone is found?’ I ask. ‘If they’re kids like me, who were Slated, it’ll never be safe for them to go back to their original lives. It’s illegal.’
‘It doesn’t usually happen like that,’ Aiden admits. ‘Though sometimes people do get in touch secretly, but keep their separate lives.’
‘Sometimes. What happens most of the time when someone is found?’
Aiden and Mac exchange a glance. Aiden answers. ‘Usually when we find out what happened to somebody…it’s too late.’
‘They’re dead for real, you mean.’ He nods. ‘But I’m different.’ Always back to Kyla is different.
‘But you’re officially dead,’ Aiden says. ‘You can’t return to your life here. There are few choices: one is what you have chosen. To go back under a different identity; to find your past.’
‘I have to.’ I sigh. We’ve been over this before, but I never told Aiden the real reason. I never told him about my father’s death, about his last words to me. Never forget who you are! And I did forget. I have to find out who I was, for him.
‘What is your new name again?’ Mac asks. I fish my ID out of my pocket. Hand it to him. ‘Riley Kain,’ he says. ‘A little different, but I like it.’
Aiden frowns. ‘That sounds kind of close to Kyla, doesn’t it?’
‘Not that close,’ I say. I knew he’d think that. If he knew my name with the AGT was Rain, he’d be really annoyed, but not many living know me by that name any more. Just Nico, a voice whispers inside. I push it away; that’d only matter if he came across my new name, and how could that ever happen? I’m not going anywhere near the AGT. This name lets me hang on to all the parts of myself: if I let go of them, what is left?
My head is fuzzy. I let Mac help me up and lead
me to the sofa in the front room, and a blanket. He and Aiden are murmuring at the door.
For all my insisting it has to be done, that I have to find out who I was, I’m afraid. What will I find?
‘Few choices?’ I say, Aiden’s earlier words filtering through. ‘What other choice is there?’
Aiden steps back into the room, kneels next to me. Smooths my hair away from my face.
‘You know, Kyla. You could tell your story for MIA, be one of our witnesses.’
‘Then run away again.’
‘I wouldn’t put it that way. We’d hide you someplace safe, or you could leave completely, while the evidence is being gathered. Until we are ready.’
‘To expose the Lorders to the world. To make the people bring the government crashing down.’
‘Yes.’
He’s a dreamer: the Lorders will never go quietly. If at all. But it is a good dream. I smile back at Aiden, and his lips quirk.
‘You’re nice on painkillers.’
‘Shut up.’
‘And your new hair is gorgeous.’
‘It hurts.’
‘Take another painkiller?’
I shake my head. ‘Best not. Aiden, there are things I haven’t told you.’
‘I know. Tell me when you’re ready.’
Aiden’s eyes are warm, gentle. If he knew everything about me, all I’ve done, would they still smile at me this way? He is too trusting for this world; he has to know. I have to tell him.
I sigh. ‘There is one thing I have to tell you now, ready or not.’
‘What is that?’
‘Your driver. The one who came when we saw Ben running at that track. Don’t trust him.’
Aiden’s face goes serious, withdrawn: thinking. ‘That would explain a few things,’ he says, finally. ‘We’ll look into it. But the curious thing is, how would you know anything about it?’
How nice it would be to tell Aiden everything. To not carry the burden alone. But before I can form a sentence, he shakes his head. ‘No; don’t answer that question. Not while you’re silly on painkillers. Tell me your secrets when you are sure you want to.’ He starts to stand, but my mind is drifting back to what he said before.
‘Wait. What did you mean by I could leave completely?’
‘You could leave the country.’
‘I could?’
‘You know MIA helps people leave when it is too dangerous to stay. To slip out of the country, over the sea. To United Ireland, or beyond.’
United Ireland: a free place of whisper, not reality. Since they left the UK decades ago their existence is never officially acknowledged. Would it be any better there than here?
Could I do that: just leave it all behind? My eyes close. There is so much Aiden doesn’t know. Things I didn’t tell him. I told myself it was because knowledge is dangerous, that he is better off not knowing. But is that really all the reason? An uncomfortable twist of my guts says there is more to it: more not wanting him to know the things I’ve done. To look at me without that warmth in his eyes. I have so few friends; I can’t risk losing another.
Willing or not to begin with, I really was in the AGT. I really was a terrorist. Even though I chose to turn my back on them and their methods in the end, how could I be a witness for MIA against the Lorders? I’m the poster child for why Slating is a good thing.
Over the sea…
To what and to where? To the unknown.
To run away.
I trudge up the path. Up and up, as fast as short legs can go. Soon all the streets and buildings are gone from sight. All is still, quiet. Alone at last.
I’m nervous but remember the way, though I haven’t come by myself before. The walk seems longer alone, and I’m relieved when I get to the gate.
There is an eerie low mist hugging the stones. They lumber, asleep, half-hidden in white. There is sunshine above; the mountains are bright sentries all around their sleeping babies. I walk across the field, into the mist, and press my hands against a stone. The sun doesn’t make it through the mist; they are cold and huge close up. But
when you stand back and look at the mountains, the stones are small.
Children of the Mountains Daddy calls them, and so do I, though I know from school that the stone circle was put here at Castlerigg by men and Druids, not mountains. Thousands and thousands of years ago. I start on one side, touching each one and counting.
I’m more than half around when a voice calls out, ‘I knew I’d find you here.’ Daddy.
I don’t say anything; I keep counting the stones. The mountains had many children. I’m just one.
Daddy walks up to me. ‘Number?’ he asks.
‘Twenty-four,’ I say, and he walks around with me, and I count out loud as we go.
‘Twenty-five.’
‘She’s really worried.’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘She’s scared something will happen to you if you are out of sight.’
I sigh. ‘Twenty-seven.’
‘I know she can be difficult.’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘But she loves you.’
‘Twenty-nine.’
‘You shouldn’t run away.’
‘But YOU do sometimes. Thirty.’ We stop. ‘And she makes me crazy.’
Daddy laughs. ‘I’ll let you in on a secret.’ He looks both ways. ‘Sometimes, she makes me crazy, too. Let’s go home and be crazy together.’
‘Finish, first?’ I say.
‘Of course.’
We keep counting, both out loud now, until we get to forty.
‘Done,’ I say, and we walk across to the gate. I look back. The mist is starting to bleed away. The Stone Children will be happy when they wake up in the sunshine; they have each other to play with when we are gone.
Later, I promise never to run away again. But my fingers are crossed when I say it.
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
I wake early, stiff and alarmed as I seem unable to move. Then I realise that Skye has climbed onto the sofa, and is sprawled across my legs: a heavy golden retriever blanket, one disinclined to wake up and tricky to dislodge.
I pad into the kitchen to make tea, and peer out the window. The world is dipped in frost, and makes my hands itch for a pencil and sketchpad: intricate white patterns trace fence and trees, decorate cars and parts of cars in Mac’s backyard, one that is more workshop than garden. No snow, at least not yet, so I had that wrong. And best of all: no white van, so Aiden is gone. That’ll make today’s plan easier. Once I work out exactly what it is.
I find my sketchpad and settle back on the sofa with my tea and Skye, meaning to draw frost’s delicate patterns, but instead a stone circle insists on being rendered. And a small blond girl – me, perhaps eight years old? – hands pressed against a stone. Was that dream a real place? Everything inside says yes. I might find it when I go to Keswick; I might touch each stone, and count the Mountains’ Children once again. But he won’t find me there, not this time. He is gone forever.
Dad died trying to rescue me from Nico and the AGT five years ago, but the memory is recent: it had been buried so deep, for so long, that when it finally came back it felt like it just happened.
Why am I going back? Dad won’t be there. I can’t remember anyone else from that life. Was it my real mother I was running away from in that dream?
She loves you, he said. Fingers crossed or not, I promised not to run away again. It wasn’t my choice when I left before, but now it is: I have to go back.
But I can’t leave yet, not without saying goodbye. Not this time. I have to tell Mum and Amy what really happened.
I’m pulling on boots when Mac finally emerges, bleary-eyed and yawning.
He raises an e
yebrow. ‘So, let me guess: you’re going to walk Skye. Just a short jaunt about the fields and back.’
‘Sure. That’s it.’ Skye’s tail thumps on the ground with the word ‘walk’.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I think you know.’
‘Aiden’ll go spare.’
‘But you won’t. Because you know I have to do this.’
He stares levelly back. ‘I’m beginning to realise more and more that there are times when, no matter the risk, something must be done. Some things must be said. Is this one of those times?’
‘Yes. I have to tell Mum. She’s lost too many other people in her life.’ Mac, of all people, should understand: from the guilt he has lived with since his school bus was bombed over six years ago. For surviving, yes, but most of all, for not speaking out about other survivors, like Mum’s son, Robert, who later disappeared and was Slated. Gone without a trace. Just like her parents, the first Lorder Prime Minister and his wife: both assassinated by an AGT bomb when she was younger than I am now. I can’t leave her thinking the same happened to me.
Skye slumps back down between us, evidently having worked out that the walk isn’t happening; at least, not with me.
‘I’ll take you later,’ Mac promises her, then turns back to me. ‘I just happened to drive through your village the other day.’
‘You did?’
‘Your house is still uninhabitable after the blast. No one is living there. Where would they be?’
‘Oh. I didn’t think of that. They’re probably staying at Aunt Stacey’s.’ I frown to myself. Aunt Stacey and Mum are close, and she seems all right. But her brother is Mum’s ex – a Lorder. If Stacey sees me, would she keep it to herself? ‘I know: I’ll try Mum’s work. She told me she goes for a walk at lunch most days. I’ll lurk about and see if I can catch her coming or going.’
‘Sounds a bit thin.’
‘It’s the best I’ve got.’
‘Want me to drive you?’
‘No. I’m less conspicuous on my own.’ That is what I say out loud, but this is something I have to do alone. And despite my new hair, despite my new ID, going there is still risky. If anyone is actually watching for me, would they be fooled?