The Black Room (17 page)

Warren's eyes flicked nervously left and right.
Not too fast,
Tom told himself.
If he gets really scared, he'll bolt.
They had to do things quietly, without attracting attention. He took the key out of his pocket, producing it with a flourish, to make sure that Warren was really looking.

“Recognize this?” he said, waggling it in the air.

Warren looked blank.
Oh come on, you lunkhead. You must know what it is.
But Tom spelled it out, to make sure it was crystal clear.

“It's a key to your house, Warren. And do you know what it unlocks?” He waggled it again. “It's the key of the conservatory.”

Warren's eyes widened suddenly. His hand flashed out, and he grabbed at the key, trying to twist it out of Tom's hand. But he wasn't quick enough. Tom threw it over his head, and Robert snatched it out of the air and put it in his pocket.

“Don't be mean,” Emma cooed. She stepped into the gutter, moving up beside Warren so that he was completely boxed in. “Let him have it back.” She gave Warren a big, artificial smile. “You don't want us poking around in the conservatory, do you?”

Warren's mouth began to tremble, and Tom wondered for a second what would happen if they just told him the truth.
We know about the girl under the floor. We're going to rescue her. Will you help us?

That would be the clean, direct way. But they couldn't take the risk.

He looked kindly at Warren and gave him a smile like Emma's. “Of course you can have the key back,” he crooned. “We're not interested in that cruddy old television in your conservatory. I'm sure you've got much better things
inside
the house. Haven't you?”

Warren shook his head furiously. And then nodded, as if he didn't know what answer to give.

Tom raised his voice slightly, giving it a threatening edge. “I hope you're going to help us. Otherwise... we might have to talk to your sister.” Warren's face went white. For a second, Tom thought he'd overdone it and ruined the whole thing.

Then Warren said, “I haven't got a sister.” His voice sounded tight, as if someone was choking him.

“There's a girl around somewhere,” Emma said gaily. She reached out toward his bag and flicked at the braid on the zipper toggle. “If you won't help us, we'll have to track her down and see if she's more cooperative.”

Warren stayed dumb, looking down at his feet.

“Well?” Tom said. “Are you going to help us?”

He knew the answer already. It was obvious from the way Warren was standing and from his sullen, hopeless expression. They'd gotten him exactly where they wanted him, and all he needed now was a bit more hassling to make him admit it.

“What do you want?” Warren muttered without looking up.

“That's better,” Tom said. “That's
much
better. Now you're being sensible—and we can talk about the key.”

He clicked his fingers and Robert tossed it to him. He caught it and held it high in the air, dangling it just out of Warren's reach.

“I'm going to give this to you,” he said. “And I want you to put it back in the door, very quietly. So that no one knows it's been missing. Can you do that?”

Warren gave a reluctant, sulky nod and held out his hand for the key.

“Not so fast.” Tom lifted it higher. “There's another thing as well. We'd like a little bit of help tonight.”

Warren's eyes flickered up and down, left and right. He looked everywhere except into Tom's face. “I can't do anything,” he whispered. “My dad would kill me.”

“Then we'll have to look for your sister after all,” Emma said sweetly.

Warren's face went bright red. “What have I got to do?” he said.

“We want you to turn off the burglar alarm,” said Tom. “And the security light. Just for tonight. We'd like them off by midnight.”

“No, no, not midnight. I can‘t—” Warren shook his head. “They're not always asleep—”

“Two o‘clock, then?” Tom looked at him sternly.

Warren nodded. Tom had the feeling that he would have agreed to anything.

“Don't forget,” Robert said from behind him. “And don't even think about telling anyone.” It was the first time he'd spoken. Warren glanced fearfully over his shoulder, and Robert drew a finger slowly across his throat.

“Look at me!” Tom said sharply. Warren's head snapped back. Tom pushed the key into his hand and closed the fingers around it. “Here you are, then. Put it back as soon as you get home—without being noticed. And make sure you don't fall asleep tonight. If the burglar alarm goes off”—he smiled wolfishly—“we'll have to call the police and tell them about all the suspicious things we've seen.”

He meant to sound vague and terrifying, and he could see that he'd succeeded. He stared straight into Warren's eyes, not letting him look away, and Warren stared back, beyond thinking or speaking or moving. Paralyzed with fear.

For one, long moment, Tom knew exactly what it felt like. He could have been staring right through Warren's pudgy face into his wretched, shivering mind. It was like being in a tight, closed space, with no air and no room to move.

“All right,” he said abruptly. Ending it sooner than he meant to because he couldn't bear the feeling anymore. “You can go now. Just do what you're told and keep quiet about it. Then you won't get into trouble.”

Warren bobbed his head obediently, and looked around for a way out. Emma gave him another one of her smiles.

“I know we can rely on you, Warren,” she said. Then she stepped back and let him dodge past her, into his street.

They heard him scuttle down toward his house, getting slower as he reached the end of the road.

“He'll never do it,” Robert said.

“Yes, he will.” Emma grinned at Tom. “You played that just right. He'd have done anything he was told. You had him in the palm of your hand.”

Tom felt sick. He'd
made
Warren do what he wanted. Instinctively, he'd known the right things to say and the right tone of voice to use, to tap into the fear that dominated everything Warren did. He'd
understood
him.

It was like a lead weight in his mind.

22

“NATE'S ...
dead?”
LORN SAID SLOWLY.

She said it for them all because no one else could speak the word out loud. The cavern was silent with the shock of it.

Cam nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, exhausted by the effort of telling them. For almost half an hour she had been talking about the journey, ignoring questions and explaining everything that had happened, in order. She was very pale, except for the jagged red wound running down her face.

And she'd told less than half of it. They still didn't know what had happened to Robert.

Bando wriggled closer to Lorn, and Annet began to cry quietly, with her face in her hands. Twisting her fingers together, Lorn tried not to picture how Nate had died. Tried not to think about the hot, stinking breath of the hedge-tiger and how its black eyes must have sharpened suddenly as its yellow teeth snapped together.

It was Perdew who broke the silence. “Is Robert dead, too?” he said harshly.

Cam rolled her head sideways, looking to Zak for an answer. He let his eyes travel around the cavern, from the big stack of new wood to the padded blankets Lorn had made out of white floss. He gazed at the fresh green leaves they were eating and the little sacs of juice piled into snail shells beside Annet. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and dry.

“You didn't collect all that food yourselves, did you?”

For a moment it sounded as though he was talking about something completely different. People glanced uneasily at each other, and Perdew shifted impatiently, wanting his question answered.

And then—Lorn understood. The thought came so suddenly that she realized it had been there all the time, at the back of her mind. She'd been pushing it away.

“It's Robert, isn't it?” she said. “He's the one who brings the food.”

Zak didn't answer. Nor did Cam. But the others stared at her.

“How
can
it be Robert?” Ab said. “It's impossible.”

“No, it's not.” Lorn struggled to keep her voice steady. “Don't you remember why they all went on that terrible journey? Robert was trying to get back to—what he was before. And he's done it. He's
stopped being small.”

There was a breathless, disbelieving silence. Then Cam nodded slowly—and the cavern exploded. People pushed forward, talking and laughing and shouting, breaking the circle to get as close as they could to Zak and Cam.

“Is it true? Is it really true?”

“How did he do it?”

“Why was it only Robert?”

“What about us?”

“What do we have to do—?”

Lorn found herself on her own, outside the crowd, looking at people's backs.
Why are you all so desperate to be big?
she wanted to yell.
Why can't you stay like this?

Their heads were full of pictures from before, from the lost time that was too dangerous to think about unless Zak made them do it. But inside her own head, there was nothing. Only darkness.

We don't remember,
she wanted to shout.
We look forward.
But she knew that no one would listen to that now. For the first time since Zak brought her into the cavern, she felt as if she didn't belong. As if she would never belong again. Robert had left and gone where she couldn't reach him, and now all the others wanted to leave, too.

And she couldn't want that. She didn't know how.

She slid backward out of the broken circle, desperate to get away from the voices and the questions and the terrible
desire.
Grabbing a bundle of bat furs, she made for the entrance tunnel, not following any plan, but acting instinctively. Taking the nearest escape route.

As soon as she pulled out the branches, she began to feel the cold. By the time she was halfway through, her skin felt as though it was shrinking around her. She was shivering uncontrollably, and her teeth knocked together, every breath drawing icy air into the very center of her body. When she came out into the woods, she was already chilled, right through to her bones.

Outside, it was even colder. The earth was covered with sharp white crystals that hurt her feet as she clambered over them.
I can‘t,
she thought.
I can't
—And she nearly turned back.

Then a breath of wood smoke came drifting down toward her, and she realized where she could find some heat. Following the scent of the smoke, she turned and clambered up toward the little hole where it escaped from the cavern.

Even there, the ground was very cold, but it was warmer than anywhere else. Spreading a couple of furs underneath her, she wrapped the others around her body, drawing a fold across her face to keep in the warm breath. Only her eyes were left uncovered. She stared out at the cold from inside a cocoon of fur.

The woods were beautiful and strange. The cold white crystals edged each separate clod of earth and every bare twig. They outlined the stray, brittle leaves still hanging on the great trees and coated the dead stems of the small ones.

If she lifted her chin out of the fur, she could see her own breath eddying out into the air, like the smoke from the brazier. For the first time, she wondered where it came from, thinking how it went in cold and came out warm. She imagined a labyrinth of dark tunnels inside her body where the change happened slowly, magically. Time after time.

Drawing another breath of the icy air, she lowered her head to blow it out over her cold fingers. And as she did that, something came drifting up from the bottom of her mind. Something fainter than the smell of wood smoke, harder to grasp than the breath itself. A voice that spoke right from the center of who she was.

“Lorn?” Zak said, from somewhere far away. “Lorn, you'll die if you stay there.”

She opened her eyes and came swimming up out of the dark place where she had been. Zak was standing over her, propping himself on a stick. His face was yellow and tired, and he was leaning heavily, swaying slightly as he looked down at her.

“You shouldn't be out here!” The shock of seeing him sent Lorn shooting back into the ordinary world. “You're not strong enough. You should be in the cavern.”

“Come with me then.” Zak held out his free hand.

She jumped up and took it quickly because she was afraid that he would fall. But he was looking hard at her, and his blue eyes were sharp and clear. She knew he wouldn't be distracted into thinking about himself.

“I can't go back,” she said. “I can't bear it.”

“Can't bear what?” he said. But she could tell that he knew. That he was pushing at her to say what she meant.

And because it was Zak, she told him. “I can't bear the way they're all remembering. Wanting to go back. How can I share that? There's nothing in my head except
here.
If I'm not in the cavern—then I'm nothing.”