Hidden Among Us (9 page)

This can’t be happening
. There was nothing I could do now but wait. I was useless.

Hot tears leaked slowly down my face. I brushed them away with one hand.
Let her be OK
, I whispered, feeling like an idiot.
Please, God, please let Connie be OK
. I only go to chapel at school because they make us but I would have tried anything. I stared at the font, a pool of holy water cupped in ancient stone. How many babies had been christened in this place over hundreds of years, had holy water tipped onto their heads, crying as the devil was driven out? How many had died before they grew up?

I thought of Connie lying silent and still in her hospital bed, drips and lines coming out of her small arms.

I’ll do anything to save you
, I thought.

It was my fault: I knew that. If Mum and Dad were still together, Connie wouldn’t be in hospital now. Everything is connected, like an endless row of dominoes. If somebody pushes the first domino, they all fall, one after another. That day had led step by step to this one; I’d picked up the birthday card poking out of Dad’s laptop case, glanced at the artistic black and white photograph of some mountains, then looked inside, read the message.

“Dad, who’s Elena?”

Mum turning to stare, mouth half open. “Adam? What’s she talking about?”

Dad frowning at me. I could see it in his eyes: Elena was meant to be a secret. Now she wasn’t
.

If I hadn’t made that mistake, the infection in Connie’s body, in her blood, would have found another home.

All because of my stupid fat mouth. No matter how many times Alice or anyone else tried to reason with me, I knew it was my fault Mum and Dad had split up. Alice had said it so many times I lost count:
Seriously, Lissy, your dad must have wanted to be caught. Why else would he keep a birthday card from his secret girlfriend in his laptop bag and then ask you to get his charger? Come on, you’re being stupid about it!

The truth was, in the split second before I’d spoken, I
knew
that Elena was meant to be a secret. And it wasn’t fair. Mum deserved to know. Rafe has hated me ever since.

He blamed me.

But really it was idiotic, swearing to save Connie’s life. Because what could I do?

I stared, miserable, at the font. There were carvings in the stone but they’d nearly worn away. That’s how old it was. I could just make out a snaking vine with leaves and flowers, tried to imagine a stonemason wearing the funny medieval clothes I’d seen in books: a baggy tunic, tight leggings. He must have crouched for hours with aching arms and legs, working slowly at the stone, perhaps almost a thousand years ago. There were people-carvings, too, mostly worn to nothing, but down near the base of the font I could clearly see a small group – saints maybe? – completely dwarfed by the tall slender angel standing in the middle of them all. An angel? I leaned closer. An angel with no wings.

Maybe it’s Jesus or something, and they’ve made him bigger
.

I couldn’t stop looking at the tall figure: eyes, nose and mouth long worn away, the flowing robes. I knew it was looking back at me from somewhere within its blank face. This weird electric pulse shot through my body, and for a second I swear I was hit by that smell again. Mouldering leaves. Damp sheds. Hot sweetness.

The boy,
I thought, reaching out to touch the tall, robed figure, pulling my finger back a millimetre before it brushed the stone.
It’s the boy
. I shut my eyes and saw his eyes looking back at me, black as burnt wood, so old. Then,
Don’t be an idiot. This isn’t the time for stupid daydreaming
.

“Just the milk, cheers.” Joe’s voice jerked me back into the real world, where Connie lay in hospital. How could I daydream about some guy I’d met at a train station when Connie was so ill? Making up silly stories: no one could be that old. “Do we need anything else?”

—A boy I’d met at the station and then followed into the woods.

A woman had appeared behind the table now, waiting with Joe’s stuff in a plastic bag. She had long dyed blonde hair and wore those crushed-velvet hippy clothes you see in shops that sell incense and crystals. Both she and Joe were looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“No. Only milk.” I was about to go and wait for Joe outside when I realized the shop-woman was staring at me from behind her rimless glasses. Her eyes were round and jelly-ish, like enormous frogspawn. Her skin was pale, too, as if she never saw daylight. I shivered: looking at her more closely was like turning over a rock and finding a shuddering mass of worms.

“You’re staying at the Reach, then?” The shopkeeper’s voice was light and breathy, fairy-like. It might have suited an eight-year-old girl. Coming from a woman older than Mum, it just sounded scary.

“Yeah.” Joe turned to leave, obviously not wanting to chat as he picked up the blue plastic bag. “Cheers.”

He took a few steps towards the door, but the shopkeeper kept her eyes on me, just staring. Half smiling. “Tell Miles Conway that Virgie Creed sends her regards,” she said. “Tell him I said to take care of himself.” She gave me a horrible knowing look, like we were in a conspiracy together. “We used to step out together, Miles and I, before his head was turned.”

Oh, my God. She was Miles’s
ex-girlfriend?
How gross. Virgie Creed looked me up and down. Definitely making some sort of assessment. I should have just turned and walked away, followed Joe out of that church, or shop, or whatever it was, but something made me stay. She smiled again. Her teeth were a tobacco-stained jumble, dark yellow like the ends of her badly bleached hair. Looking at them, I felt sick.

“You have found them, my darling, haven’t you?” she said in that sing-song voice. Deep cold settled over me. I fought the urge to turn and run. “They’ve turned your head, too. Or rather,” she went on, “they have found you, pretty one. They must have been looking.”

She knew about the boy.
Of course she does,
I thought,
he’s carved on the font in the church, there for anyone to see
.

I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t. I was aware of Joe standing behind me, waiting. I sensed him watching, impatient, ready to leave.

Virgie Creed smiled, leaning across her table so that one of her heavy velvet scarves knocked over a bottle of shampoo. The dull plastic thud filled the church, a bubble of sound exploding. A dusty wave of incense and stale cigarette smoke drifted towards me.

“That’s the trouble with Conway’s land,” she went on, still smiling, leaning closer. “The old magic is strong there. The Reach began as standing stones, before the monks came and went. Did you know that? It’s an old, old place, Hopesay Reach.” Her breath smelt of stale cigarettes. “Miles opened the Gateway, you see. Silly boy. He shouldn’t have done that. He should’ve stuck with me, but she got to him and he was never the same. Never the same, do you hear me?”

“I don’t—”

“No, no. It’s no good pretending. They are here. They have come, and they’ll be hunting for pretty young girls to breed with.” She shook her head. “Now listen. Remember. They might grant your heart’s desire, but be careful how you pay. Never dance with the Hidden, and if you shake their hands, you must count your fingers afterwards, do you hear? They can’t be trusted.”

I did remember. In my mind I was back in that wood, hand in hand with the red-headed boy, dancing among the trees. Wild and full of joy.

The warning came too late. I had danced already.

I felt a rush of hot, bitter nausea, reached out for the table to steady myself. I watched my reaching hand rest on nothing; my head whirled. A bright jolt of pain shot through my knees as I fell. The last thing I saw before darkness flooded everything was Virgie Creed’s face, pale and ghost-like.

17

Lissy fell and lay dead still, right by the church door. The shopkeeper made a choking noise like she was about to hurl, fat pale hands pressed to her mouth.

Oh, great. Just great
. This was all it needed.

I’d got the landline in my phone. Lissy’s brother answered after two rings.

“Yes?” I couldn’t stand the way he spoke: amazed anyone really had that accent any more. Sneering. Flat and glassy, like a villain in a black and white movie.

“It’s Joe,” I said. “Your sister’s passed out in the village, in the shop. The church. We could do with a lift back if that’s all right.” I don’t know why I was being so polite, maybe to disguise the gathering panic. All that creepy stuff about gateways and breeding. Lissy lay there on the church floor, head at an awkward angle, eyes shut, red hair in her face.

“For God’s sake.” Rafe put the phone down. No one had ever hung up on me before. Who did he think he was? I’d hated him on sight, posh southern private-school loser, and he wasn’t growing on me, either.

I took a long steady breath, pocketing my mobile, trying to get a grip. “
Lissy
.” It was the first time I’d spoken her name. Warily, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Lissy, wake up.” She was still breathing: I could see the steady rise and fall of her chest. Her pale eyelids shuddered as if beneath the skin she was looking at something I couldn’t see, staring wildly from side to side.

The Creed woman snatched my hand away from Lissy. “Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t touch her.”

I stared, holding my hand close to my chest as if she’d burnt the skin.

“She’s with the Hidden, dreaming their dreams. If you try and pull her away, she might not find her flesh again. Sometimes they wander, the Caught.” Leaning close to me, she stank of cigarettes and something else, flowery and herby, that made me half want to sleep. “Sometimes they can’t find the way back. Have you seen an empty body with no soul?”

An empty body with no
soul
? The Hidden?
How was I going to get Lissy out of here and away from this freak?

I stared at my phone, not knowing whether to call Rafe again or my dad. I didn’t do either. The last thing he needed was me ringing up in a state. I didn’t want to chuck Lissy in the deep end, either. Judging by last night, she was in enough trouble already.

Lissy lay totally still except for her eyelids twitching, chest heaving as she breathed.

“She danced,” the shopkeeper insisted. “Didn’t she? You must be careful with the Hidden. They’re very tricky, very sly. They don’t think the same as us, you see. Don’t see right and wrong in the same way.”

I didn’t know what she was on about so I just ignored her.

A car pulled up outside, a door slammed. Rafe came walking in, straight over to us. I hadn’t expected that. He must’ve driven flat out.

“Lissy.” He dropped into a crouch at her side. His voice was hard, like he was speaking to a total stranger, not his sister.
“Melisende.”

Lissy turned away from him so all I could see was the back of her head.

And then Rafe hit her across the face. So hard the crack of it echoed right up to the roof.

“Hey! Leave her alone.” Hot anger flared in my belly. You just don’t do that. He ignored me.

If there’s anything you need, ask Rafe,
Dad had said as they rushed out of the door. Obviously the golden boy in their eyes but he didn’t fool me.

Lissy opened her eyes, looking confused, then started to cry, tears slipping down her face, quiet all the time.

The shopkeeper just watched us all, mouth hanging open like a ragged black hole.

“Get up,” Rafe said.
“Now.”

What was he in such a panic about?

Lissy just held a hand to her cheek, looking away. Then she rolled over, pushed herself up and ran out of the church.

Rafe followed her and the shopkeeper put a white hand on my arm. “You need to watch out. They are coming. You will tell Mr Conway, won’t you? That Virgie Creed says
watch out
.” She hissed the last words through her teeth and fixed me with her pale boiled-pudding eyes and I went cold all through.

Get a grip
.

“Conway knows what to do, what little there is,” she said. “More than any one man alive, that’s for sure. The dead know plenty. Poor Davy. He knew. Go up to Conway. The land is his; he keeps the Gateway. Don’t let her rest, that’s all I’m telling you. They will take her as she sleeps. And don’t try to bargain with them, understand? They’ll always manage to trick you somehow.”

Pulling away from her, I turned and walked out after them. My skin prickled like someone was dotting me all over with a frozen pin. Davy? A gateway?

She watched every step I took. Mad as a sack of cats, daft old bag. All that crap about being dumped by Miles Conway. Must’ve been years ago and she was still on about it.

Rafe drove off without me in his crappy Renault, not that I cared. I didn’t want to be in the car with them. At least he couldn’t hit her again while he was driving. I sighed, hardly even moving as an expensive-looking black SUV shot past, spraying me with muddy water that splashed up the side of my face. The windows were darkened but as I glared after it, I saw one flat white human hand pressed up against the glass. There one second. Gone the next. As if someone were trying to get out but knew they couldn’t.

Miriam had seemed OK at first, quite nice, not too weird or pig ugly like Dad’s other girlfriends, but now
this
. Her kids were insane and Miles was just a liability.

What had Dad got us into with this family?

18

I parked round the front. Lissy was silent in the seat beside me, a red mark on her face. Her skin was bone white and pale, streaked with tears, about Connie or because I’d hit her, I didn’t know. I felt bad about the slap and I didn’t need that irritating kid of Nick’s preaching at me about it either. But Lissy couldn’t faint; she couldn’t sleep. Not now. They were waiting.

Mum had never told her a thing. Just tried to keep her locked up like a jewel in a box. How stupid can you get? Because now Lissy was not only useless and unable to defend herself, she was furious too. That train ride. I almost admired her for it. I couldn’t blame her for that.