“You’ll help us?” asked Heidi. She asked it softly, and daringly, as though she couldn’t believe that it were true.
“Yes,” I said, without looking at her. “I’ll do it. This one last thing … and then I’m done.”
8
When I came back home, thirty-six days ago, my bedroom had changed. Not dramatically—it was still much as it had been, with striped wallpaper, and a dresser opposite a small double bed, with a pair of mirrors on the top, arranged at angles so I could see both sides of myself at once. There was a bookcase, a little squat one, that was overflowing with books so a stack had to sit beside it. And another unit by the bed had been swallowed by them too, but still I didn’t have all the room I wanted for these Seeker tomes I’d taken from my dad’s office.
What had changed was just how tidy it was. Boys got a bad rep, apparently, said my mother numerous times when we were growing up. They were thought of as untidy—but really, it was me and Camille who were the messy ones. We left clothes in piles, dirty or clean, filling the floors until we had no choice but to put them away. The dresser’s surface became a dumping ground for anything I couldn’t be bothered finding a home for—makeup, plates and glasses that stacked up until the kitchen cupboards were half bare, about five pairs of headphones all tangled together, a couple of broken MP3 players …
All of that mess had been tidied in my absence. The room I stepped into last month had been much, much cleaner than I’d left it. But it was still mine. Mum had cleaned it up but kept my things intact—the stacks of books, for example, were now arranged as neatly as possible on top of the squat bookcase, still here but much more orderly than I’d ever had them.
I hadn’t let the room become as untidy as I’d left it again yet. Oh, I might leave a T-shirt or three in a pile on the dresser for an afternoon, and I might leave a handful of bits and pieces on the surface—headphones were always going to live there, whether Mum liked it or not—but I kept on top of it. Not out of any pride, but because it kept me busy. And busy kept me from thinking.
I stepped into my room now, Heidi and Borrick waiting patiently downstairs. This was my sanctum, and I’d not have them in it—even if I were just grabbing a few things.
I needed to be quick, really; didn’t need Mum or Dad happening upon me. They’d not be impressed with my decision. Neither was I, looking at it from the outside.
Still, I didn’t rush; just approached the dresser, opened the top drawer on the left, and began to pull out the things I would need—a striped red and yellow umbrella, to start. The metal loop that kept it stuck to my belt was gone—I’d been forever breaking the things as I snapped it off to unfurl Decidian’s Spear in its true form—so I’d need to sort out another one. Luckily, I had a whole bag of them somewhere around here … there, in the back, a half a dozen spilled out where they’d been shunted about by the drawer’s movement. I threaded one onto the little plastic strap at the bottom of the handle, attached it to a larger keyring—and then I affixed it to my jeans, around a belt loop.
There.
My outfit wasn’t exactly in line with Seeking, I realized. Pushing the door to, I stripped off my hoodie and the tee underneath, traded out my bra for a sports bra, and then pulled on two tops, one over the other, grey first then army green, tight but not in a look-at-me sort of way, with short sleeves. Better.
My boots, I’d stowed in the closet. They were buried behind a lot of other shoes, gifts mostly, so I pulled them out and looked them over. They needed a bit of a clean—there were streaks of dried mud around the soles—but never mind. I slipped my feet in, not especially bothered that Mum would castigate me for tromping them through the house—the dirt was long dried, and it would vacuum up easily; I’d even offer to do it myself if it stopped her jumping down my throat—and then it was back to my dresser.
The line launcher, I’d stowed in the middle left drawer. The elvish rope glimmered with a brilliant sheen, as if polished. I strapped it onto the back of my jeans, so it hung down and clunked against my left buttock.
My pocket flashlight, I dug out. The screw-on bottom, housing the batteries, had come out, so the pair of AAs had spilled out too. I reset them, and tested it—all working, if a little dull. Perhaps that was due to the brightness in here already, making it hard to tell; more likely these batteries were on the way out. I’d replace them later.
I shoved it into my pocket.
My compass was next. Dad hadn’t asked for it back—and I hadn’t offered to give it to him. Why not, I hadn’t been sure. Maybe it was the part of me that was not yet willing to give up on this stupid Seeker dream I’d had for so long, even when it meant absolutely nothing.
Whatever the case, I glanced at its face—a cut-through here, in my room, winked at me, inviting me to a place with bright pink foliage—and then I clipped it to my belt.
And finally …
My talisman. I lifted it, let it dangle. Its ornate patterns, folding in on themselves, almost Celtic in design, caught the light.
I considered it as it gently rotated on the chain …
There were footsteps in the hallway.
Quickly, I tied it round my neck, before my mother came in and exploded at me, or my father, coming down on me with a quieter fury, summoning what was left of him to straighten his broken body and forbid me from leaving once again.
The door opened—
And there stood my fourteen-year-old sister, Camille.
Camille—Millie, as Manny had nicknamed her—was, in a way, a more miniature version of me. Her hair was curly too, although tied up in a messy ponytail; she was the same shade of milky cocoa despite Manny’s somewhat darker complexion; and she had a body that was built for muscle. But she didn’t have a lot of it; she hadn’t trained, as I had, so she looked somewhat frailer than she ought to.
Or maybe that was her eyes.
She looked at me with her soft brown gaze, curls hanging over her face.
She looked...wounded.
“What’s going on?” she asked, voice a little frantic.
Damn it. She’d worked this out in half a second, so quick I didn’t even see the transition from whatever expression she’d worn before to this one, this ache. She knew what I was doing—I hadn’t dressed like this since I’d got home—and she knew exactly what my intent was.
Another pang of pity went through me. I knew how this must feel to her. She’d been close to Manny, closer than I had been, the near-ostracized middle child. When I came back, told my family about what had happened to him … it had broken her apart.
She’d latched onto me, as best as she could—as best as I’d allow—after that. Mostly it consisted of visits like these, a barefoot specter who came by my bedroom, perhaps to check on me more than to have the stilted conversation she made before disappearing again. In her head, I guess she figured—At least I have this.
At least I still have my sister.
And now here I was, about to walk out on her.
“Leaving,” I said shortly, tucking my talisman under my tops. “But I’ll be back soon.”
“You’re taking your things,” Millie said. Her voice was higher than mine anyway, a distinctly feminine sound that I didn’t possess, no matter how I tried to contort my vocal cords. But now it grew higher still—there was panic in it. “You’re taking your Seeker gear.”
Guilt stabbed me, intermingling with the sympathy. Damn it—why did this have to be so hard?
Why did I have to keep letting people down?
I did my best not to look at her. Not that I would second guess myself if I did—I was way beyond that, into fourth- and fifth-guessing territory. But this was going to be quick, and I was going to be home, and then I’d never be leaving clad in my Seeker gear again. This worry would be short-lived. Millie would see.
And she would see. Because I couldn’t tell her. She was frightened, sad, like a wounded animal backed into a corner. No words would convince her of anything but the worst—that I was leaving, and
never coming back, destined for the same fate that had befallen Manny.
“I’m sorry,” I said, patting myself down to ensure I had everything. Compass, check. Decidian’s Spear, check. “Someone needs my help.”
“Who?” Millie demanded. “A friend?”
“Not exactly.”
“Let someone else do it then,” Millie said quickly, stepping into my room to meet me. She grasped for me—
I stumbled backward, disentangling my arm from hers.
The wounded look in her eyes grew stronger.
“Please,” she begged. “This is dangerous—”
“I know,” I said, and sidestepped her. This was too long already, too drawn out. I needed to go, before this whole thing got worse.
“What if you die?” Millie asked, following.
“I won’t.” Moving down the hall now—and Millie was following.
“But how do you know?”
I stopped then. Millie had too.
I turned.
She was on the verge of crying, her eyes pink. Her panic was frantic, written in all the lines of her face.
“Please,” she said. “Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me.”
The words cut me. I was as close as I’d ever come to choosing to stay here, in this house.
But …
“I can’t,” I said. “I’ll be back—soon. I promise.”
And without looking back, I left.
9
We were walking down the long road that took us back into Colchester town center. We’d gone a long way—the final bus stop, and the Tesco Express, were in sight, hiding the great roundabout that connected the dual carriageway to a handle of others, including the one that carted buses up the hill to the stop outside the Odeon.
Most of our trip had been quiet. I just needed to know where to go—which Heidi directed. From there, all I did was follow.
As we were heading to the traffic lights that would let us across the dual carriageway, I caught Heidi watching me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just … surprised they didn’t try to stop you.”
Millie did—but I didn’t say as much. “Well, unless you let on, they didn’t know about it.” I cast them a suspicious look—they’d been downstairs with Mum while I sorted myself out for this excursion. By the time I went downstairs, Mum had gone again, but the pair of them had a half-drunk mug of tea, Heidi’s very dark and Borrick’s ridiculously pale. “Did you let on?”
“No,” said Borrick. “Not our place.”
But she’d have had questions—about my explosion, and likely where I’d gone and why the pair of them had been left to their own devices. “So what did you say?” I asked, thumbing the button for the traffic lights. WAIT lit up in milky white. The traffic light stayed green; it was never in a hurry to change and let pedestrians over, even when the carriageway was clear. Of course, it was not that, right now—a steady stream of traffic burped exhaust fumes into the air.
“Not a lot,” said Heidi. “She asked about the shouting, and we kind of brushed it off.”
“I don’t think she really bought that,” said Borrick.
Heidi shrugged. “And we hid the coin from her too.”
“Right. Well … thanks, I guess.” She was the last person who needed to see it—well, except maybe me.
The traffic light tuned amber. A couple of chancers pushed the pedal down to breeze through before it turned red, zooming off with their engines roaring. I crossed and was pleased to see that both cars found themselves quickly stopped anyway, by the traffic queueing at the roundabout. Served them right.
My left foot had just touched down on the opposite pavement when—
“MIRA BRAND!”
All our heads swiveled round like they were screws suddenly drawn out by a drill.
Eight cars back, far enough that they hadn’t been able to see the crossing beyond the white Transit van that obscured the lane ahead, was a very familiar, royal blue Land Rover. My father had the wheel. On the passenger side, two windows were open. From the rear one hung Millie, staring with wide eyes.
In front of her, the person from whom the call had been issued—was my mother.
She gripped the car door like her life depended on it. Her upper body was practically entirely out of the car—and in the half-second I stood, turned to a statue in my shock, she seemed determined only to wrench herself out farther. It was a good thing the vehicle was stationary, because one signpost would be all it took to decapitate her—or indeed slice her in half down near the hip, she was so far out.
And it would not be stationary for long. Already the traffic light was flashing orange, even though we’d barely left the crosswalk. Cars were revving engines, handbrakes were released. My dad looked just as wild as Mum and Millie did, ready to gun it.
“YOU COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW, MIRA BRAND!” Mum shrieked, in a thick accent that might as well have been Swahili to all but acutely trained ears.
“Uh,” Borrick said, “they seem...nonplussed. What do we do?”
“Run,” I breathed, already breaking into a sprint.
They didn’t need telling twice, beating feet quickly behind me.
Unfortunately—the dual carriageway split into two parts. A smaller road lay alongside it, serving the Tesco and a hairdressers and a handful of other shops arranged along it. The traffic lights brought you only to a long, thin island—more of a promontory, actually, seeing as it ran practically all the way from the roundabout—that separated them both.
Meaning we now had another road to cross—a road that was also busy with midday traffic.
“Mira!” Millie cried. “Please come back!”
Not a chance.
Without bothering to hammer the button for the next set of traffic lights, I lurched out into traffic.
A red Porsche, poorly cared for so it did not shine but rather looked murky with dried mud up its sides and an unhealthy spattering of bird poo along the top, swerved to avoid me. The driver slammed a fist down on the horn, blaring—
I didn’t care. I just leapt, angling my body so my momentum was slowed enough that I didn’t throw myself directly into the path of the next vehicle, a blue Ford Focus whose bespectacled female driver and similarly bespectacled balding male passenger looked positively terrified—and then I was on the opposite street and pelting down the road in the direction of the Tesco Express.
“Wait up!” Heidi called. “You don’t know where you’re going!”
“I know I’m getting away from them, and that’s enough for me,” I shouted back over my shoulder.
“MIRA BRAND!” Mum roared.
I cast a look back—
My heart shot into my throat.
Mum had forced the door of the Land Rover open. Removing herself from the window she’d been bisected by moments ago, she was now lurching around the barriers that kept cars from ploughing over the crossing and destroying pedestrians waiting for the bus and running after us.
Millie looked on the verge of it too. But the Land Rover peeled away, engine shrieking.
“I’ll go round!” Dad yelled out of the window.
I caught Millie’s look—was torn for a moment between feeling betrayed by her and feeling sorry for her—and then I shouted, “I'll be back soon, Mum! This won’t take long!”
“COME BACK HERE! IT’S TOO DANGEROUS FOR YOU! WHAT WOULD YOUR BROTHER SAY!?”
A small junction separated this road from one that climbed up the hill, wide enough only for a single car because of all the traffic parked along both sides of the street. I hesitated—
“Keep going,” Heidi called.
“Where?” I asked.
“Spurn Wyle!”
Sounded like utter madness, to anybody standing by—and there were plenty of those, all stopped as three teenagers pelted by, one looking like a female Indiana Jones but with a garish brolly strapped to her waist, another like a waif kitted out in a barebones summer wardrobe from N
ext, and a comic-book-reading goth legging it from a small, somewhat heavily built Nigerian woman—who, despite her short stature, was making a damned good job of keeping up.
Still, there was one thing in our favor. Of my parents, my father was the Seeker. Mum had done her own little stints, now and again—but she didn’t know, like Dad did, the routes throughout Colchester to connecting worlds. Yes, she knew the Spurn Wyle—but she didn’t know that there was a connection to it right at the back of the Arts Center. Hopefully.
We just had to get there before she did.
Fortunately—we had a hill on our side.
I took the next turn, narrowly avoiding a man walking out of the greengrocer’s with a bag of apples, both of which—bag and apples—had seen better days. Heidi sprinted round him too—Borrick might’ve collided, although I couldn’t be sure—but already I was pelting up the rise, heading toward the bridge.
“COME BACK THIS BLOODY INSTANT!” Mum cried from the bottom of the hill as she rounded the corner. ‘Bloddy’, again. Her accent was damn near impossible to understand.
And she was huffing for breath. Sprints like this were not something she often engaged in—another boon for us.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brand,” Borrick called over his shoulder. “I really am.”
“Oh, stop sucking up to her for two seconds, would you?” I bit off over my shoulder.
The hill was definitely a point in our favor. I’d always thought it quite shallow—but then, when you’re middle-aged and the height of strenuous activity is bringing back a couple of bags of veg from the market and some meat from the supermarket, you likely have a different perspective than a fit eighteen-year-old, in the prime of life. So we pulled away—and Mum’s shouts grew more frenzied, and breathier, as we went.
Finally, we hit the bridge, forking right across the carriageway. It was flat, and long, with metal bars to either side, probably a twenty-meter drop into traffic. As a kid, I’d always liked it, standing and waving at the drivers of cars and trucks and being elated when someone waved back—or, joy of joys, laid on the horn as they passed under me. But Millie was less enthused. Her encounters with it were punctuated with a terror that the whole thing would come crashing down with her on it—which she could avoid, somehow, if she stood in the very center of the bridge and walked across it with both her arms extended, a hand on each rail. Not an easy task, for two good reasons. One: four-year-olds didn’t have quite the arm span necessary to grip both sides at once. And two: there were often people passing in the other direction, meaning she had to relinquish her grip (which, due to the first problem, tended to be just her forefinger and middle finger brushing along the steel).
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