Читать книгу The Sign of One - Eugene Lambert - Страница 13

‘Don’t just sit there. Get dressed and give me a hand moving this,’ says Rona. She pulls at our cast-iron log burner, but can’t move it on her own.

The enormity of what’s happened to me, and what will happen if anyone finds out, is sinking in. I hear the air roaring in my ears with every breath I take. I reckon we should be hitting the road, not shifting stoves around.

‘What for?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand.’

Rona puts her hard face on and grits her teeth.

‘Kyle, every second counts. I need you to help me. Now.’

I still feel like screaming, but the desperation in her voice gets me moving. I throw my clothes on. Working together, we walk the stove back and lever up its hearthstone. Hidden in a hollow beneath this, smothered in bugwebs, is something wrapped in an oil-stained rag and a small electronic device.

More secrets Rona has kept from me.

‘What’s all this?’ I ask.

She picks the device up, blows the worst of the dust off and powers it up.

‘My old comm. Hoped I’d never have to use this.’

Amazingly – because it looks like it’s been down there for ages – the communicator beeps and boots up. Looking satisfied, Rona powers it down, then buries it in her healer basket. The other rag-wrapped thing, she pockets. The shape of it and the weight dragging her jacket down all say blaster to me.

‘Where’d you get tech like that?’ I say.

Either she doesn’t hear me or pretends not to.

‘See if you can put the burner back the way it was,’ she says. ‘I have to go out now. You bolt the door behind me and let nobody in. Okay?’

I shrug. ‘Where are you going?’

Rona frowns. ‘I’ll check my other patients, then call some old friends of mine from a lifetime ago. With luck, they’ll be able to help us.’

‘But if they find out I’m a –’

I stop myself from saying ‘twist’ just in time, as Rona glares at me. ‘Trust me,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back quick as I can.’

Last thing she does is stick some fresh dressings on me. I whine, saying I don’t need them now, but she insists, telling me it’s a precaution. She heads off then, her healer basket on its strap over her shoulder. I bolt the door behind her, like she said, open the shutters a crack and watch her trudge away, head down and back bent, along the track towards the other farmsteads.

She glances back once, but doesn’t wave.

I get that, but only later. Why wave to someone who’s supposedly dying?

Now I’m on my own, my thoughts run riot. I mean, how do you handle finding out that you’re evil and a monster? The bane of Wrath. A foul caricature of humanity, like that High Slayer Morana woman said at the Peace Fair.

Don’t ask me – I haven’t got any answers. All I’ve got is a fever of questions and a lump of dread in my stomach.

After a while, I start thinking that bolting the door behind Rona wasn’t such a slick idea after all. What if Fod comes back? Or somebody else pops round looking for Rona? Won’t it look suspicious if the door’s bolted and Rona doesn’t answer? It’s not like I can let them in; I’m supposed to be dying. Maybe it’d be better if I unbolted the damn thing, hunkered down under my sheets and took my chances.

Yeah right. And hope if I get a visitor they’re not too curious.

In the end I chicken out and leave the door bolted.

The day limps by. The sun goes down and still there’s no sign of Rona coming back. I’m on my bed, hugging my knees, moaning and trying not to puke. I stare at where my wounds were and more questions hammer inside my head.

What am I? Who am I? How can this be?

Thing is – I don’t feel evil. Okay, I look at my skin and I see twist, but I’m still me, Kyle. Unless the becoming evil thing happens later? When I was little, I once stuffed my face with some mushrooms I found. Their purple was all over my face when Rona caught me. She went mental, terrified I’d eaten poisonous ones. I sat there, cringing and crying, wondering when the poison would kill me.

That’s what this feels like now. An evil within, waiting to possess me.

You’re human, Rona said. But she would, wouldn’t she?

I’m so busy feeling sorry for myself, I don’t hear the footsteps. The knock at the door is only a tap, but I nearly die of fright. I cower, wondering if it’s Jude at last, or Fod again, before I hear Rona’s whisper telling me it’s only her. I draw the bolts back and open the door. She slips inside past me. In the glow from the tubes, I glimpse some colour back in her face. She looks tired but satisfied.

‘You got hold of your friends?’ I ask her.

She nods and smiles at me. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘How come?’

‘We need to be ready tomorrow,’ is all she’ll say.

I throw more questions at her – like who are these friends of hers and how come I’ve never heard of them before? – but she’s not in a talking mood. And when I wake the next morning, after a long night of tossing and turning and dreams I can’t remember, I find her gone again. There’s a note waiting on the kitchen table. In her loopy scrawl, it tells me she’ll be back very late, that there’s food in the cool store, and to put together a day pack with my trail gear and be ready to go. Bolt the door, the note says, and don’t let anyone in, no matter what they say.

That means Judith too is double underlined.

A second day of waiting stretches out into forever. A thousand times I shrink inside, sure I hear footsteps again on the path. I endlessly pack and repack my rucksack. In the end, I lie on my bed, Rona’s rusty old hunting blade beside me.

What’s Rona up to?

Where will we be going?

I stare at my little fingers. How can I be a twist?

Questions, questions. No bogging answers. It’s doing my head in.

The room gets darker and darker and so does my mood. Through the cracks in the shutters I see the sun set again, but still no sign of Rona. I’m going out of my mind with being lonely and frightened and not having anybody to talk to.

As the glowtubes flicker on, I think of Jude.

I miss her. And that’s when the thought strays into my head . . .

I just have to say goodbye to Jude. I know it’s mad, but I can’t clear off forever and leave her lonely and thinking I’m burnt to a black, charred crisp. Rona will kill me, but Jude’s not just my girl, she’s my only real friend.

The Flint farmstead is ten klicks away. It’s cloudy, so neither the little dogmoon or the bigmoon to shed any light, but I find my way easy enough. Should do – I’ve worn a groove in this trail these past few months. A rain shower rattles through, but that’s good. Less chance of anyone else being out. It feels great to be outside, breathing fresh air deep into my lungs. My skin tingles with the damp and the moving. With every step I take, I start to feel stronger.

Only . . . what’s causing that? I shiver.

To cheer myself up, I think about how Jude and I got together last winter. I was over at her father’s place, fixing his threshing machine. This curly-haired girl, about my age, was chopping firewood – I couldn’t take my eyes off her. When I asked her name, she gave me this lopsided smile, said it was Jude, and asked me mine. I teased her, told her she was proper handy with an axe for a girl. She teased me right back, said I’d fix her dad’s thresher a lot quicker if I quit staring.

We’ve been together ever since.

I don’t know if I love Jude or if she loves me. All I know is, Jude’s the only person, other than Rona, who smiles when she sees me. And I need to hold her one last time.

As I creep into the farmstead, their dog Bram woofs off a few half-hearted barks and rattles his chain, but he knows my Kyle stink and soon shuts up. Across the yard, the loaf-like outline of the thatched house appears out of the darkness. No lights are on. They’re all in bed already. As the only daughter, Jude has a sleeping place to herself in the lean-to at the far end. I tiptoe round there and do the soft tap-tappety-tap-tap at her window that tells her it’s me. Soon as I hear the telltale creak of her floorboards, I scuttle off to wait in the hay barn.

Jude takes her time.

Long enough for me to worry she’s not coming. Or telling her father.

Finally, she slips inside the barn to join me. I flick on the solitary glowtube and see she’s alone, a threadbare work jacket thrown on over her night stuff.

She scrunches her face up against the light.

‘Is that really you, Kyle?’

‘In the flesh, or what’s left of it.’

I open my arms out to her and hold my breath.

‘It is you!’ she says. She comes running, throws her arms round me and buries her face into my bandaged neck. I’m so relieved, I hoist her up off her feet and spin her around. When I put her down again, she smiles up at me.

But as I go to kiss her, she pulls away.

‘I don’t get it,’ she says, looking confused. Her chin wobbles. ‘The last thing Rona told us was that you were close to –’

‘I’m tougher than I look.’

Jude gives me her slow-nod sceptical look. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’ll tell you later, but first things first.’ I pull her closer, slip my hands under her jacket and feel how she’s still lovely and warm from her bed.

‘Ew! You’re all cold and wet,’ she laughs.

I kiss her and she kisses me back, pressing herself against me. Her hands are at the back of my neck now, pulling my head down so she can reach me. How it happens I’ll never know, but she knocks one dressing off. It’s only loosely taped on, more for show than anything, and comes away with a slight sucking sound.

‘Oh my Saviour, I’m sorry.’ Jude pulls back, her eyes big with concern. We both glance down at the bandage lying in the straw. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No, I’m fine.’ I try to turn away, to stop her seeing, but I’m too slow.

I feel her go rigid. ‘Kyle!’

With the toe of my boot, I scuff uncertainly at the straw. When I look up, I’ve made up my mind. I can’t just say goodbye. It’s mad, but all the horror, the fear and loneliness, I can’t keep it inside – I need to tell her. Maybe if I can make Jude understand that I’m still me, everything will be all right again.

I sit her down on a hay bale. ‘I can trust you, can’t I?’

She nods stiffly, but I see her wondering.

‘Don’t be scared,’ I say.

I unbutton my shirt. One by one, I peel off the rest of Rona’s dressings and show Jude how my wounds have almost completely healed. I hold her tight when her eyes flood with panic. I shush her and stroke her curly hair.

She’s petrified, trembling like a newborn lamb.

‘It’s not what you think,’ I say.

Thank the Saviour she doesn’t scream, but when I relax my grip, anxious not to hurt her, she makes a break for it and I have to grab her again.

‘Jude, stop. I’m not going to hurt you.’

A long time goes by like this. I do everything I can to calm her. I whisper she has no reason to fear me. Her mouth opens and closes, but no words come out, only a low moan. It’s an ugly feeling, me making her skin crawl. Not that I can blame her. She sees my unnatural healing and that means only one thing – human on the outside, inside a monster. No wonder she’s terrified.

‘Let – go – of – me,’ she says.

This time when I release her she cringes, but doesn’t run. She won’t let me touch her again, but she looks able to listen. Quickly, I make up some crap about Rona finding an ancient wonder drug in her medchest.

Jude stares as I babble on, her chest heaving, until I run out of words. She knows I’m lying, I can tell.

‘If anybody sees you like this,’ she says shakily, ‘you are dead. They won’t listen; they’ll kill you. And Rona too. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say. What else is there to say?

We sit there, in the circle of light, the darkness crushing in on us. I try to read her face, but there are too many shadows. On the way here, I had so much I wanted to say to her. Now, it all seems so pointless. My impossible healing shouts more loudly than any words can.

‘What will you do?’ she says.

I hesitate, wondering what I should tell her.

‘We’re going away, to someplace nobody knows us. We’ll be okay.’

‘Going away? Where?’

‘I don’t know. But that’s why I came, to say goodbye.’

Tears shine in Jude’s eyes now.

‘It’s too late for that,’ she says, very quietly.

‘What’s that mean?’ I say.

But she won’t look at me and I get it now – she thinks I’m gone already.

‘You’re wrong,’ I say. ‘I know what it looks like, but I don’t feel any different inside. I’m the same as ever, I just heal faster. I’m not evil, Jude, not even bad!’

I try to smile and reach for her hand, but she snatches it away.

‘Don’t touch me!’

I curse and she flinches, like she thinks I’m going to rip her head off or something. Next thing, she’s on her feet and backing away. I scramble after her, sensing she’s about to run. And I can’t help it, I’m angry now.

‘Look, this isn’t my fault!’

She trips over something in the muck and straw.

I swear I only grab her so she doesn’t fall backwards, but she gasps loudly and I’m sure she’ll scream. Without thinking, I clamp my hand over her mouth. She flails against me, tries to push me away, but I’m too strong. Her eyes bulge.

I pull my hand away, brace myself.

‘You said you wouldn’t hurt me,’ she sobs.

I shake my head and try to get a grip on my temper. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. But you mustn’t scream. If your father finds us here, sees me like this, then it’s like you said – I’m dead. And so is Rona. You don’t want that, do you?’

She stares at me, but says nothing. Which says it all.

‘You won’t tell, will you?’

Jude shakes her head, but I see her little finger trace the Sign of One. I’m so stunned, I let go of her. She gives this huge gulp and darts to the side door. Beyond the spill of light, I hear her fumbling at the latch and her ragged breathing.

The door creaks open, then bangs shut behind her.

The drizzle eases as I make it home. The nearly full bigmoon finds a gap in the clouds and paints our shack silver, nestled in our herb and vegetable gardens. I’m wondering if this is the last time I’ll ever see it like this, when I notice the sliver of light sneaking out from under the door. Oh great, that’s all I need. Rona’s back already, probably waiting behind the door with a hatchet.

I bang inside, slam the door behind me, determined to make no excuses.

‘Look, I don’t care. You can’t keep me –’

Rona looks up from stuffing something into my backpack. Her glare could stop a charging fourhorn.

‘Where the hell have you been, Kyle?’ she growls.

And that’s when I see we have a visitor.

She’s sitting, her legs stretched out, in the chair by the stove. Those leathers, the long white dreads, the teardrop tattoo, her dark green eyes. . .

My mouth drops open. So does hers.

‘You!’ we both say.

Windjammer girl launches herself to her feet.

‘No way. I’m not flying this scumbag anywhere,’ she says to Rona.

Rona looks from me to the girl and her eyes go wide.

‘What? You know each other?’