Heart of Danger (10 page)

A
s the men rode across the bridge, the noise of the horses’ hooves carried up to where the three of us watched and waited. I kept an eye on Hera, alert for any sign that she sensed danger. She leaned against me but she wasn’t frightened.

The riders came up the road from the bridge. The bigger man was definitely Jasper.

‘Oban!’ Hera and I shouted in unison, and took off down the road. ‘Wait for me! Wait for me!’ Hera yelled, but I ran on regardless.

Oban jumped down from his horse, threw the reins to Jasper and raced to meet me. He laughed as I crashed into him, and swung me in a circle to stop the momentum from knocking us both to the ground. Over and over he said, ‘You’re alive. Both of you. You’re still alive.’

‘Yes. We survived.’ It was as if saying it made it real.

Hera arrived at a run. ‘Oban! I want to ride the horse.’

‘Please,’ I reminded her.

She beamed a smile at Oban. ‘Please, Oban.’

He let me go and lifted her onto the horse’s back. All the time Jasper watched us, shaking his head as if he thought we might vanish. ‘I’m that relieved to see you, lassie,’ he said, scrubbing at his eyes.

I reached up to take his hand. ‘You saved us, Jasper. You and your people. With all my heart, I thank you for my life and for my sister’s life.’

He just kept on shaking his head, but he gave my hand a squeeze. ‘Shall we go then? There’s nothing more to do here?’

I looked up to where Callie stood at the top of the hill. She seemed poised ready to run.

‘Callie. Come here,’ I called. ‘We’re leaving now and we’re not going without you.’

For a second or two it seemed she wasn’t going to come. But when Hera waved to her and shouted, ‘Come and see me ride the horse!’ she started down the hill towards us.

Oban was frowning. ‘Callie? The girl who went to Fairlands?’

‘She saved us,’ I said. ‘When the house exploded. She got us out before it happened. They’d wired it up in case …’ The brief spurt of energy that had taken me down the hill to Oban drained away. Tiredness swamped me again. ‘It’s complicated …’

Jasper said, ‘Get the lassie on the horse, Oban, before she starts sleepwalking.’

And so five of us rode back down the road to the river, Callie and Jasper on his horse, Oban, Hera and me on the other. I almost fell asleep. I remember hearing Callie talking to Jasper about the animals and him telling her his people would see to their welfare, but otherwise I took in little of what the others said or did.

In the middle of the bridge, Oban and Jasper pulled the horses up. They shaded their eyes, looked towards the sea and discussed whether to wait for the police or to go on. I let their words float off in the breeze. Nothing to do with me. My part was done.

‘I want to go home now,’ Hera said. ‘I’m very hungry actually.’

Jasper and Oban laughed, and Jasper reached into his saddlebag and handed something to her. It was a cold baked potato stuffed with a savoury filling. She prodded it suspiciously.

‘I’ll eat it if you don’t want it,’ I said. I was hungry too – starving.

But as if by magic Jasper produced a potato for me as well. It didn’t matter that it was cold. I’d probably have eaten it if it had been raw.

The horses shuffled their big feet and tossed their heads, making their harnesses rattle. Jasper quietened them with a word, but he said to us, ‘They’re right to be restless. We need to be on the move again.’

‘You go,’ Oban said. ‘You’ve done more than enough. But the police will need to know what’s happened. I think we should wait.’

‘Are you sure you’ll be safe?’ Jasper asked, turning to look at Callie sitting behind him.

‘All the leaders will have gone on the boat,’ she said. ‘The workers won’t hurt us.’

Jasper squinted up at the sky. ‘I’ll be away then. The day’s closing in and I need to go now if I’m to be home in daylight.’ He helped Callie slide down from the horse. ‘Don’t you be worrying about the livestock, young lady,’ he said. ‘We’ll be over first thing in the morning and we’ll see to them.’

Oban jumped to the ground, reached up to take Hera, then it was my turn to scramble down.

Jasper hitched the reins of the horse Oban had ridden to the saddle of his own horse, then we walked with him to the end of the bridge. We’d need to find a place where we could watch the river with some comfort, because it could be a while before the police arrived. We waited, though, until we’d watched Jasper disappear among the scrubby trees. He turned to wave one last time.

Callie stared after him, then she made a quick, frightened check of the river. It was hard to know if she dreaded the arrival of the police, or if she was scared the leaders’ boat would come back.

Oban stamped down a tangle of weeds at the edge of the road. ‘We can see the road and the river from here.’ He held out a hand to Hera. ‘Want to help me pull up some bracken? It’s good to sit on – kind of springy.’

She hesitated, then took his hand. ‘Don’t you go away, Juno,’ she said.

I sank down onto the decking of the bridge. ‘I promise. Hurry up with that springy stuff. This is a hard seat.’

‘Want to come, Callie?’ Oban asked.

She gave the river another frightened glance before joining them. I rested my head on my knees and shut my eyes.

My mind wouldn’t let me relax. Ivor hovered at the edges of my thoughts. They carried pain mixed with betrayal. There was humiliation in there too. How could I have got it so wrong?

Don’t think about it.

So instead I concentrated on thinking about those who had helped us – Jasper, Oban and Callie herself. Jasper and his people were living a sort of Taris life, shut away from the rest of the world. Why would people choose to do that?

Oban and the girls came back toting armfuls of wiry bracken fern. ‘You put it down like this,’ Hera said. ‘And when you jump on it, it’s a little bit bouncy.’

She did several more bounces while the rest of us settled ourselves as comfortably as we could.

‘Okay there?’ Oban asked me.

‘Yeah. I’m good.’ But then my mouth was forming words, asking, ‘Did Ivor get back?’

‘I passed him on the road,’ Oban said, biting out each word.

‘Oban, he didn’t love me! He never loved me.’ The words broke from me in a desperate wail. I huddled where I sat, head on knees, arms locked around them, and howled.

They tried to comfort me. There was no comfort. The boy I’d thought I’d spend my life with, have children with, love with all my being for all the days granted to me, was just an illusion.

I understood now that hearts could break.

Hera put her arms as far around me as she could. ‘Ivor silly, Juno. I
told
you. He silly.’ She’d gone back to baby talk, and her voice was high and strained.

Somebody lifted her away, then I heard Oban talking. ‘Juno will be all right soon, Hera. But not just yet. Don’t worry. Sometimes it’s good to cry.’

That set me off again, and I cried till my eyes were sore, till the whole of me ached to match the ache in my chest. Ivor didn’t love me. He’d never loved me.

But you can’t cry forever. When the storm dwindled to the sniffing stage, Callie pushed a rag into my hand. ‘Take this, Juno. It’s not the cleanest, but better than nothing. I got it from the shed where we keep the tractor.’

I took it, glad to be able to scrub my face and blow my nose. The rag smelled of oil.

‘Thanks. I must look ghastly.’ I tried a smile. It almost worked.

Hera said, ‘Well, I still love you, my sister.’

That made the tears seep again. I returned the hug she wrapped around me.

But Oban grinned at me. ‘Yep, you’re one big mess, Juno. Let’s hope the police don’t bring television cameras with them.’

It was as if he’d jabbed Callie with an electric goad.

‘I can’t stay. I’ve got to go now.’ She jumped to her feet, ready to run.

Before she could take one step, Hera said, ‘You come with us.’

Callie looked like a wild, cornered creature. ‘No, I can’t. I can’t stay. I’ll find the others. I’ll be all right.’

‘The police will find them sooner or later,’ Oban said. ‘You might as well stay. You’ll be okay. We’ll tell them how you helped.’

‘Please don’t go, Callie,’ I said, but I was too tired to say more.

Hera got up, took her hand and tugged her back to our bracken seats. ‘You’re my friend. Don’t go away.’

Callie sat down, still looking far from happy.

We settled again to wait. Nobody mentioned Ivor. I didn’t want to speak of him either. I didn’t want to know how it was he’d been content to leave me to face all this by myself. I knew that wasn’t a sensible thought, or a logical one. I’d run away from him. I was the one who’d left. I was the one who’d known it had to be me, and me alone, who rescued Hera. But it didn’t stop the hurt. Or the anger. He should have come after me. He should have tried to find me.

Why?
asked a voice in my head.
To prove he loved you?

Oh shut up,
I snapped back.

Love wasn’t supposed to be logical.

I tried not to think about him. I didn’t succeed.

The police arrived in the gloom of dusk. Not a good time of day to cross the bar, Jasper had said. But they’d come anyway. We heard their boat before we saw it, and Callie led us down to the landing to meet them. She looked as if she expected them to arrest her.

The police wore black and carried guns which they lowered when they saw us. One of them spoke into a device he held in his hand. We heard him say, ‘Voyager to base. Voyager to base. They’re safe. Both the girls. The guy too. I repeat, both girls and the guy. All safe.’

They took us on board, gave us hot food and told us we couldn’t go further until daylight. They took our statements. They’d stopped the getaway craft, they said. They’d boarded it, secured the prisoners and sent it back to base with a team of police piloting it and guarding the prisoners.

‘How did you know to stop them?’ I asked.

A policeman who didn’t look much older than Oban regarded me with a fatherly air. ‘We thought we’d take a look because they were so dead set on getting away from us. Not at all keen to chat and pass the time of day.’ He stood, and smiled down at me. ‘A bit of kip for you, young Juno. I’m sorry we haven’t got a feather bed for you – you sure deserve it.’

I was almost asleep and nothing made much sense. Deserve? I stumbled after him. Oban and Callie took Hera’s hands, and the fatherly officer led us off the boat to where a circle of tents had been pitched. I lay down on a surface that was softer than the ground and let Callie tuck something warm around me. I heard her promise to look after Hera, and then I slept.

W
hen I crawled out of the tent in the morning, the first thing I saw was people in handcuffs sitting slumped on the ground on the other side of the camping area. I recognised them as the work group who had stopped me as I walked up the hill the day before. Secondus had left behind the workers, the slaves, those he deemed to be of no account. That figured.

I spent a panicked few moments looking for Hera but she was there, sitting eating breakfast with Oban in front of a cooking fire. I was starving, but a toilet stop was urgent. Oban saw me, grinned and pointed to a screen of canvas. ‘Behind there. But leave your modesty in the tent.’

I saw what he meant. The toilet was a trench with a log rigged above it to squat on so that your butt hung over the edge. I got out of there as fast as I could. There was a barrel of water outside the screen. I dipped in the basin beside it and washed as much of my face and body as I could. I felt better, but still thought it lucky I couldn’t see what I looked like.

‘Okay?’ Oban asked as I sat down beside him and Hera.

‘I will be when I’ve got some food inside me.’

I almost had to sit on my hands to stop from grabbing the very full plate Hera was holding, but she pushed it at me. ‘This is for you. These creatures are sausages. The policeman told me.’

She seemed unaffected by all that had happened to her, and chattered on while I got stuck into the food.

‘A while since you’ve eaten?’ Oban asked, a smile in his eyes.

I nodded. ‘Not properly since I left New Plymouth.’ I didn’t say I’d been too worried about Hera, but he knew. ‘Where’s Callie?’

‘Helping the police with their inquiries. I understand that’s the official way of saying
You’ll tell us everything if you know what’s good for you.’
He pointed at the biggest tent. ‘She’s been in there since before you woke up.’

I set my plate on the ground. ‘Don’t eat that. I’m still hungry.’ I’d eaten only half the fried potato and none of the sausages. ‘I need to tell them she helped us.’

Hera was indignant. ‘I told them. I told them that, and I said Callie is a good person.’

Oban picked up my plate. ‘Finish it. They want to see you when you’ve eaten.’

I relaxed. It wasn’t all up to me now. The only thing I had to do was follow orders.

I sipped the cup of tea Oban brought me and watched him give small twigs to Hera to throw into the fire.

‘Oban …’ I stopped, my thoughts veering dangerously in the direction of Ivor.

He looked up, waiting for me to continue.

I shrugged – where to start? ‘Thank you. For coming after me. For helping us.’ For doing the things Ivor should have done.

He broke off another couple of twigs for Hera. ‘You would have done the same for me.’

Yes. It was what we Taris people did. ‘Do you think we’ll ever be able to trust Outsiders?’

‘Juno, don’t let Ivor cloud your judgement.’ I winced at the mention of his name. ‘Remember that Willem and all those who saved us were Outsiders. Hilto, Majool and Lenna were Taris.’

I let that sink in, ‘You’re right. Sorry.’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Finish that tea, then it’s time for you to talk to officialdom.’

Hera hung on to me, so I took her along too.

 

The first person I saw when I entered the interview tent was Callie. She was sitting hunched in a chair, cringing away from the three officers sitting across from her behind a flimsy table. Her whole body seemed to relax when she saw us. I gave her a quick hug before taking a proper look at the police.

‘You surely do go in for the adventurous life, Juno of Taris.’

‘Detective Inspector Whitely! Hey, it’s great to see you!’ She was the woman who’d interviewed Marba, Silvern, Paz and me after we’d rescued Willem.

‘Hey, to you too,’ she said, and grinned. ‘Sit down. Callie – let Juno have your chair. We’ve finished with you for the meantime. Don’t leave the camp.’

No please or thank you from D.I. Whitely. Callie scuttled out.

Hera leaned against my knees and stared at the D.I., then at the two men flanking her. They both wore the full black regalia but had left off the guns and the padded vests. D.I. Whitely didn’t introduce them.

‘From the start, Juno. The whole story with nothing left out.’ She put a small device on the table in front of them. ‘A recorder.’

Hera stamped her foot. ‘I told you. I told you all about the bad people.’

D.I. Whitely inclined her head. ‘Yes, you did.’ She tapped the recorder. ‘It’s all in here. We always talk to everybody. It’s routine. Right, Juno. Let’s get started, shall we?’ Her hand hovered above the recorder for a moment and she said, ‘Be as accurate as you can. Your statement will be used in court. You’ll be required at the trial too, as will Callie.’

Another trial. Another starring role on national television? Not for the first time in my life I wished I had Silvern’s love of the limelight, and her ease in front of cameras.

The D.I. pushed the record button, said my name, the date and the time, then signalled for me to start talking. I told her everything, beginning with Hera saying she’d be going away soon. She didn’t look too surprised about any of it – not the little kids identifying the river mouth to the south, or me heading off in the other direction, although she did interrupt to ask, ‘Why?’

I tried to tell her the truth without actually saying that my dead grandmother had told me to. ‘I just got a feeling, a sense that they’d taken Hera north. I was supposed to go south with a group from Fairlands, but it just felt wrong.’

One of the men asked, ‘And do you often get these very helpful
feelings
?’ His disbelief washed over me.

I sat straight. ‘I’m happy to take a lie-detector test.’

‘Go on with your story,’ D.I. Whitely said.

I had to speak of Ivor. It was hard. I hurried through his part in the story, relieved to get to Jasper, and to tell of his kindness and how he’d taken me as far as he could.

I pointed across the river in the direction of the hill where I’d been caught by the workers. ‘They took me into the house. It was huge. We went down a long corridor to the dining room. That was huge too. There was a man on a sort of throne. They called him Secondus. He said he’d kill me. Then a voice came over a loudspeaker and said to take me to him.’

Bring the bitch to me.

D.I. Whitely leaned her arms on the table, then thought better of it when it creaked. ‘I believe the man Secondus intended to kill you. How did you stop him?’

Oh glory – the sneering cop wasn’t going to believe this either. Too bad. It happened. He’d just have to get over himself.

‘Listen, you have to understand that I don’t know why I said the things I did. But I just started talking – threatening him.’ I shivered, the words echoing through my head, but this time I repeated them with none of the strange power behind them.
‘If you kill me, then I will haunt you for all the rest of your days. There will be no peace for you – not waking nor sleeping, for I will hunt you down wherever you are. I will make your existence a living hell. This I promise you.’
I shrugged. ‘He was scared. I don’t know why. They were only words.’

D.I. Whitely made no comment. She pressed a couple of buttons on the recorder. ‘Listen.’

I jumped as Callie’s voice came out of the device.
‘She said if he killed her, she’d come back and haunt him. He … we all … believed every word she said. She looked like a pillar of burning flame. I think what she said physically hurt Secondus. It was like his heart got burnt.’

The D.I. stopped the recording and regarded me with raised eyebrows.

I shook my head, bewildered. ‘I don’t know. It just felt like the thing I had to say. I did feel the force behind it. But … I didn’t understand it. I still don’t.’

‘Very well. Go on.’

I hurried through the telling of how the leader decided to use the pathogen to sacrifice us both. I hoped Hera didn’t understand what that meant. ‘Secondus brought in a vial. He was frightened and very careful when he gave it to the leader. I threw the stool I was sitting on and it broke the vial. I ran out of there with Hera. Callie saved us. She broke a window for us to escape through, then she stayed with us even though we slowed her down. All the others kept passing us, sprinting for safety. That’s all I know.’

‘Very well. You can go. But stay nearby. We’ll be leaving shortly.’ The D.I. didn’t ask any more questions or even comment on my story. Just as well. I was still trying to absorb what Callie had said.
A pillar of burning flame
? For the love of Taris, I couldn’t even begin to think what that was all about.

Oban and Callie waved us over to where they sat by the fire, out of the way of the bustle of breaking camp. ‘You look stunned,’ Oban said. ‘You okay?’

I didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Yeah. Just going through it all again … you know? I just want an ordinary life.’

Oban laughed, and said to Callie, ‘You’ll have to get used to life being on the dramatic end of the scale if you hang about near Juno for long.’

‘Hey! That’s not fair!’ But when I thought about it, it did have an atom or two of truth in it.

The sneering cop gave us a shout then, and jerked his head in the direction of the jetty.

‘I think he’s begging us to step aboard his humble and unworthy craft,’ Oban said loudly enough for him to hear.

Another boat. The trip from Taris to Aotearoa had put me off ever yearning for life as a sailor.

Callie and I boarded together, and followed Oban and Hera to a seat along the side of the deck.

‘I have to give evidence,’ Callie whispered. ‘In Wellington. At the trial.’ She looked terrified.

‘Yeah, I know. Me too.’

‘But aren’t you scared?’

I thought about it. No, I wasn’t scared. ‘I want those people stopped. They’ve killed too many, done so much damage. I don’t think I’ll enjoy giving evidence, but I’m not scared.’ I felt my will harden even further against Secondus and his tribe. This trial would unravel the mysteries that had haunted us since before we set foot on Aotearoa.

Callie still looked frightened, but Oban asked her if she got seasick, and went on to give her a dramatic account of the trip from Taris and how not many of us could eat for several days. ‘Quite the opposite actually,’ he said, and she managed a smile.

In the end, sickness turned out not to be a problem. We made frequent stops for the police to check out settlements along the coast, and we were able to disembark so long as we stayed close by.

It was late in the day when we got to New Plymouth. As I’d feared, reporters were waiting for Callie, Hera and me.

‘Don’t say anything,’ D.I. Whitely ordered. We were happy to comply.

A police car had been ordered to take Hera, me and Oban to my house. Another would take Callie to Fairlands. ‘Willem says they welcome you,’ the driver told her. She seemed only half reassured.

I so wanted to be home, to see my family. And I wanted a shower and clean clothes. ‘I must look a mess,’ I said.

Oban looked me over, starting at my mud-caked boots and finishing at my tangled hair. ‘Yep, you do. That jacket’s wrecked too. They’ll probably throw you out.’

We laughed, because he didn’t look any better than we did.

‘There’s my house!’ Hera yelled, bouncing up and down. ‘And my mother and … Dad! Dad’s home!’

Leebar and Bazin were there too. We were a family again. And almost before the car had stopped, we were out and running. We were home. Safe.