The Stolen Child (6 page)

“
Tottenham.  Estates.  It's… It's not really somewhere you'd want to go back to, you know?”
 

“
So you left?”
 

Instinctively, she glanced away.
 

“
Yeah.  Something like that,” she said.  “What about you?  Where'd you come from?”
 

He leaned back, and looked up at the darkening grey sky.
 

“
That's, uh… A really complicated question,” he said.
 

She turned to look at him.  The rumble of a passing train reverberated up from the building.
 

“
Man, you are trying really hard to be all mysterious and stuff, ain't you?”
 

A look of irritation flashed across his face.
 

“
What, and you're not?”
 

She scowled, and looked away.
 

“
Listen,” she said, after a moment, “thanks for helping me out back there.  That was real good of you man.”
 

She pulled herself back from the edge of the roof and stood up, shouldering her pack.  He looked up at her, surprised and confused.
 

“
I'll see round, OK?” she said, turning to leave.
 

He was on his feet before she'd gone three steps, grabbing her by the elbow.
 

“
Hey, where you going?” he said.
 

She shook his hand off.
 

“
Don't get personal, dude,” she snapped.
 

“
Those guys could still be after you.  You know that right?  
You should let me stay with you.”
 

She glanced back at him, and for a moment there was something unsettling in his eyes.  A strange mixture of fear and determination.
 

She forced a shrug.
 

“
Fine, whatever man.”
 

As she started to walk again, he fell in stride beside her.  At the far of the roof, she dropped down.  She heard the thump as he landed just behind her, but already she was picking up speed, cutting back on herself.  Another drop, and she darting down a narrow street, towards the embankment over the train yard.  She heard him scramble down the embankment behind her, heard him shout something, but she wasn't paying attention to the words.  There was a string of parked carriages up ahead, and she hit the ground rolling, right between the wheels.  Coming up on the other side, she turned and jumped, catching a handrail to haul herself up onto the carriage roof.  Looking down, she glimpsed the tail of his coat disappearing as he rolled under the carriage, now heading in the wrong direction.  Quietly, she dropped down, and sprinted away, back towards the embankment.  The sound of her footsteps against the gravel was buried in the thunder of another train passing.
 

Back on the streets, she kept running, cutting back on herself a couple of times, until she was sure she had lost him.  
Feeling strained and exhausted, she
slipped around the back of a supermarket, arriving in a narrow side-street with a loading dock.  Cigarette stubs littered the ground, and towards one end of the
alley a pile of disused metal shelving had formed.  She
settled down against the wall, opposite
a
mound of broken boxes.  
She pulled out her water bottle and took a long swig.  The bottle was still pressed to her lips when she heard the sound of footsteps, and looked up just as a shadow fell over her.
 

She recognised the man from the train instantly, steel grey eyes regarding her with a compassionless gaze.  His companion
was the man from the alleyway, fair haired, broad shouldered, and seeming even taller now that he was looming over her.  His eyes were blue, and cold.
 

They didn't even speak.  Both men just reached down to grab her by the arms.  She
tried to scream, but ended up choking on the mouthful of water
.  As fingers like iron wrapped around her arms she kicked away, but they were far too strong.  She continued to struggle in their grip as one of the men clapped a hand over her mouth.  She lashed out, catching the
grey-eyed man
in the leg, but
h
is grip did not falter.

Then, as they hauled her to her feet, she saw a movement above.  A dark shape, descending.  
Briefly
, she had the impression of outstretched wings.  The
figure crashed down onto the taller of the men, knocking him to the ground
.  Rachael was
thrown
backwards
by the impact
, landing
hard against the wall
.  For a moment she could only register the pain that exploded across her body.

Dazed, vision blurred
and struggling to breath,
she could
still
hear the anger and confusion in the men's voices.  She looked up in time to see the
taller man
go flying backwards, as
Justin
landed a hard kick to his jaw
that seemed to leave him
stunned
.  
Then the steel eyed man lunged at the boy from behind.  Justin wheeled around, a flicker of bright silver in his hand quickly resolving itself into the shape of a knife.  The blade plunged through the man's hand, blood flowing over bright steel and dark skin.  Then Justin wrenched the knife free, and wheeled around to plant a knee into the man's guts.  He doubled over.
 

Then Justin was kneeling at her side, pulling her up with strong hands.
 
She found herself looking into his brown eyes, and saw that they were flecked with tiny spots of gold
.

“You're OK?”
he said.
 

She nodded.  
Already, both of the men were struggling to their feet, hands reaching for weapons.
 

“Good,”
Justin said.
  “Let's go.”

She didn't have to think about it.  Together, they ran.

Arsha's
cabin
aboard the Triskelion
was tiny, but cosy.  A scattering of wooden statuettes littered the top of her dresser, the tools she
'd
used to
carve
them now
buried in one of the
bottom drawer
s
.  
A
half finished dress
was draped over the back of a chair
, the needle tucked into the middle of a seam,
and
books lay scattered across the
floor around
an unmade bed.  
On the desk in one corner sat the pieces of a harmonic she'd been trying to build, with Shani's help.  
 

Arsha was sitting
cross-legged
on
the
bed, with her sending stone cradled in her hands.  She concentrated, and felt the stone respond.  She held the image of Shani's sigil in her mind and let the
connection come to life
.  Moments later a ghostly image of Shani's room appeared before her.  The girl was sitting on her bed, surrounded by
the
pieces of
whatever project she was working on
.  
Her hair had been pulled up into a winding mass of braids that spilled down one shoulder.
 

“
Hey sister.  I miss you already.  How are you holding up?”
 

“
Missing you too.  I really wish you were here right now,” Arsha said.
 

“
I know.  I'm sorry sweetheart.  But your Dad insisted you had to stay with him, and I couldn't just go skipping out school right now... Believe me, I thought about it.  I really did.”
 

“
No, it's OK.  Its not your fault.”
 

“
So, did you find out what all the noise is about yet?” Shani
said.  Arsha shook her head sadly.
 

“
Dad's been... Weird.  He's just in his cabin all the time.  He's been going through all his old books, looking up stuff for whatever he's doing now.  Everyone is just...”  She shrugged, helplessly.  “Like, Micah's acting like it's all no big deal like he always does, and Ilona's just...”
 

“
Just being 'Lona.  Yeah, I know.  The more worried she gets, the more stone-faced she gets, as if that was possible.  I think I nearly died the last time I saw her smile.”
 

“
She smiles plenty.  She's just... Quiet,” Arsha said.
 

“
Babe, you don't have to defend her.  I love 'Lona to bits, but she's not exactly sociable, you know?”
 

“
Yeah, I know,” Arsha said, with a sigh of resignation.
 

“
How are my parents doing?”
 

“
They're fine, I think.  I sort of get that they both know a little, but they can't talk about it.  So everyone's just, you know, not saying anything.  Milima's spending all her time working on stuff.  Like, whenever she's not in the engine room she's cleaning something or fixing something.”
 

“
Yeah, that sounds like Mum alright.”
 

“
And Uncle Abasi's just, you know, quiet.”
 

Shani nodded.
 

“
Hang in there kid.  It'll all pan out.  Your dad's an odd guy sometimes, but he's not, you know, crazy.  What people say about him, it's all rubbish.  He's one of the smartest guys I've ever met.  And he always knows what he's doing, you know?  Even it when it looks like he doesn't.”
 

“
Yeah.  I know.  I just...  I know there's stuff that he doesn't talk about.  Things he keeps to himself.  But this is different.  He's different.  You can see it, the way he's been acting.  Whatever this thing is, I think it's really messing him up,” Arsha said, staring down at the floor as she spoke.
 

“
He'll sort it out, Arsh.”
 

“
I just wish I knew why.  Why he's acting like this all of a sudden.  Like, if I could just know what that sending was about.  Even if I just knew who it was, maybe it would make some sense.”
 

Shani nodded, and seemed about to say something.  But instead, her lips pressed into a thin line, as Arsha looked up at her, expectantly.
 

“What?”

“It's just...” Shani paused again, and then her shoulders fell a little.  “You could find out.  If you really mean it.  About knowing what the sending was.  There's a way you could find out.”

Arsha felt her stomach twist.

“How...  How would I do it?”
s
he said.
 

Her father's study had changed little over the years.  She could still re
member
how his old mahogany desk, scratched and scarred by years of use, had once towered over her.  The leather chair, a bed that was never made, and shelf upon shelf of books.  Every wall was covered with them, carefully bound with
hide
straps to keep them from shifting with the movements of the ship.

Her father's library had always fascinated her.  As she grew older she had begun to borrow heavily from his collection, diving into one book after another.  The
unfinished volumes
would pile up in her room until she came staggering back with armful after armful, and the cycle began again.  She couldn't say why she never seemed to finish any of the books she started.  
It just seemed like w
hat
ever
she found behind those well worn covers
was not what
she was looking for there.

That would be her excuse, if her father woke
; that she had crept into h
is
room late at night in search of the book that kept eluding her.  She knew it was a poor excuse.  She hoped desperately that she wouldn't have to use it.

She had waited in the hallway for hours until at last, one ear pressed to the door, she had begun to hear faint snoring from the other side.  Her father often stayed up long past when anyone else in the ship had gone to sleep.  Already a greyness was showing on the far horizon, glimpsed through the porthole in the corridor, and she was afraid that soon Abasi would
be
up and about.  A lifetime aboard ships had made the
captain
a
tenaciously
early riser.  With how late her father worked, she
often
wondered how the two had ever found enough time together to become such close friends.

She slipped into the room, easing the door closed behind herself.  
He
r father
had never even made it to the bed.  
He was
sprawled
in his leather office chair, head to one side, a fountain pen dangling between his fingers.  
She
looked around for her father's coat.  Her
hands were trembling
as she checked each of the pockets in turn.  H
is
sending stone was not there.

Then she saw it, propped up beneath the lantern on his desk,
gilded
frame gleaming under the flickering ghostlight.  A lump formed in her throat and she fought to swallow it down.  She felt as if her heart might shatter her ribcage as she
inched across the few
scant yards to his desk.  He was close enough to touch, faintly snoring.  A little trail of drool had formed at the corner of his mouth.  For one terrifying moment, she had to suppress an overwhelming urge to
laugh
.  
S
he reached out to lift the sending stone from the desk.  Her hands were shaking so hard that
t
he smooth stone
nearly
fell
out of her grasp, and she barely caught it before it struck the desk.  
She heard
a
sudden intake of breath
,
as
her father shifted a little in his seat and then settled again.  
Heart still pounding,
she slipped out the door.