The Fall (5 page)

‘Well,’ he cleared his throat. ‘They might think it’s a sign.’

She pushed her food across the table and moved around the bench. He scooted along so that there was room for her to sit beside him.

‘Of what?’ she asked, aware of his thigh pressed against hers, only flimsy cotton dividing their flesh.

‘They think the angel has something to do with the fall of the Board. I don’t really know much more than that. I never studied the Writings.’ He began delicately tracing her wrist with his finger.

The physical contact sent her heart racing. She swallowed, attempting to concentrate on the conversation. Perhaps Seton had told him about the angel and the moon when she’d gone off to change before meeting the representatives. Maybe that was why he seemed different when she saw him afterwards. ‘You . . . this poem . . . don’t you believe in it at all?’ The words came out of her mouth jumbled.

‘No,’ he answered. His finger lifted away and hovered above her skin. She felt paralysed, waiting for him to touch her again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘just in case you’re right about your dad, I think you should stay with me tonight.’

A change of subject. He wasn’t sure about the poem. Her body flushed with desire and frustration and something she barely understood.

‘Just as a precaution?’ she asked.

He chuckled, then abruptly stood up. ‘Lila!’ he called. Ana followed his gaze across the clearing. A dark-haired girl dressed in white stood by one of the picnic tables.

Lila?
Wearing a flowery summer skirt and white blouse, hair in a dozen narrow plaits, Lila looked like the sweet, feminine twin of the fifteen-year-old black leathered diva Ana had met in Camden.

Cole’s sister waved and came bounding over. Ana stepped out from the bench. Lila leapt at her, flinging arms around her neck and smacking a big kiss on her cheek.

‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ she hissed in Ana’s ear. ‘Any longer and I think he’d have gone out of his mind.’ With a quick glance at her brother, she plopped herself down. ‘I see you’ve already caused a stir.’

‘Rachel wasn’t thrilled to see me.’

‘Wait till you see Nate.’ The last time Ana had seen Cole’s brother, he’d told her that Cole was on a cargo ship to America in an effort to get rid of her. Nate had never liked her. ‘But the representatives voted you could stay,’ Lila continued, ‘so Nate and Rachel will just have to lump it.’ She squeezed Ana’s hand, pleased. ‘So,’ she said excitedly, ‘you’re going to be bunking in with me in the girls’ quarters until they can sort you out with your own room.’

‘I am?’

Cole pretended to concentrate on his food.

‘Haven’t you told her you’re doing the night guard?’ Lila asked. ‘He thought you were more likely to make a night-time escape,’ she continued, addressing Ana again, ‘so he’s been working the dreaded nightshift for three weeks without a break. At all! Anyway, the Project doesn’t encourage young people “shacking up” together.’ She laughed. ‘It’s better to get your own room. Right, I’ve got to get some supper. Once he goes off to work, you and I can spend the whole night talking!’ Lila sprung to her feet. She blew a kiss and within seconds disappeared down the path.

Cole sighed and ran a hand over his head. ‘It’ll be pretty damn impossible with Lila,’ he said. ‘But try to get her to stop yakking and go to sleep before it’s dark. Then I’ll come for you.’

‘What about your nightshift?’ In the back of her mind, Ana found herself wondering whether Rachel had been working the nightshift with him for the last three weeks.

‘My stretch is between the north wood and the ruined manor house. There’s a shelter up near the wood. I’m never far from it and I’ll be able to come and check on you – a lot.’

She raised her eyebrows.

‘I want to have you close to me,’ he said. ‘And in case your dad does get any ideas, well, no one would think to look for you there.’

She wanted to know Cole was close by too. Besides, it was a smart plan. She ran far less chance of being discovered in a remote hideout somewhere within the Project’s six hundred acres, than being found in their main village.

Later, after Cole had kissed her goodbye, Ana studied the map and realised that his guard stretch ran the length between her father’s home and the Taurell mansion. He really had been keeping watch for her.

*

Ana lay on a mattress which had been crushed to fit between the inner bamboo wall of Lila’s bedroom and Lila’s bed. The longhouse had a dozen similar rooms, each sectioned off from a central corridor by bamboo walls and doors. According to Lila, who for almost two hours had been explaining how the Project was run, all the rooms were occupied by unmarried women. Girls moved in after they turned thirteen.

So far, Ana had learned that there were pipes beneath the longhouse floors so that in winter the dwellings were heated with boiled water and, on a high hill to the south, a turbine field of eight-foot tall windmills generated electricity for a building which was used as a school and hospital. The vegetable fields and greenhouses lay in the centre of the Heath, stretching across eighteen acres and irrigated by the ponds. Grazing animals were kept in far fields. They were brought back to the settlement when it was too cold for them to remain outdoors.

At first she’d concentrated on what Lila was saying so that she could fit together all the details with the map she had. But as the sun set and dusk blotted the sky, Ana grew more impatient. She wanted Lila to go to sleep so that Cole could come, but Lila was busy lighting candles and talking like she could go on for two more hours at least.

Far off someone strummed a guitar. A burble of soft voices filled the evening air. People called goodbye to each other, withdrawing for the night.

Lila moved on to the subject of Nate and Rachel. Now that the representatives had accepted Ana into the Project, she thought Nate and Rachel would have to accept it too. Ana gave up lying flat on the bed and grunting her responses. Lila might be quiet sooner if she paid attention and asked a few questions. Besides, on this topic, Ana was particularly curious.

‘Rachel was wearing the guard’s uniform,’ she said. ‘Do she and Nate guard the wall with Cole?’

‘Everyone who grows up here helps to guard the wall. They start training when they’re ten. It’s mostly people aged between fifteen and thirty-five.’

‘Will you train?’

Lila shrugged. ‘Maybe. If we end up staying.’ She fiddled with the dripping candle wax. Ana wondered if Lila realised that she and Cole would have to leave soon. But she’d let Cole explain things to his sister in his own time. Anyway, she wanted to hear Lila’s take on Rachel.

‘So Rachel and Cole were getting on until I showed up?’ she asked.

‘Hardly. They’ve been at each other’s throats the last few weeks. I think until Rachel saw you today, she was convinced they’d be getting back together. Can’t really blame her. She and Cole have been going out since they were fourteen. And Cole must have broken up with her at least a hundred times and they always ended up back together.’

Ana wished she hadn’t asked.

‘Rachel,’ Lila continued, ‘was from one of the refugee families that were made homeless in the global crash. She’s lived here since she was a baby, except for the last couple of years when Cole began volunteering to relay information on the outside and Nate, Simone and Rachel all went with him to live on the houseboats. When Cole arrived in the Project he’d been in foster homes from the age of four and had spent half of his childhood in an orphanage. Kids steered clear of him. But then Rachel’s father disappeared and she began getting into fights. She was very angry. She fell out with most of the other kids. Both she and Cole were different. Tough. Loners. They became a team, and then a couple. Everyone always thought they’d end up together.’

Ana hugged her legs to her chest and began scuffing her feet across the bed mat. ‘Except Cole,’ she said.

‘Except Cole,’ Lila agreed.

Determined not to give in to jealousy, Ana pulled the covers up around her shoulders and smiled.

‘Listen,’ Lila said, ‘Rachel might come across as rather cold, but it’s only because she’s hurt about Cole. And I guess everyone’s pretty surprised that you actually came over the wall. You gave up everything and risked coming here for him. To be honest we’re all quite shocked.’

Ana felt a stab of dread. Put like that, it sounded like she’d done something reckless and stupid. She’d given up everything for a guy she barely knew. Unlike Rachel, who’d been going out with Cole on and off for ten years.
Time has nothing to do with anything
, she whispered to herself
.
Ana had lived with her father her whole life, and she didn’t really know
him
, did she?

‘Things in the Community weren’t exactly great for me,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s not like I gave up anything of real value.’ She lay down and pulled the blanket up over her head.

‘Ana?’ Lila said.

‘I’m going to sleep now.’ Her voice sounded muffled beneath the covers. ‘I haven’t slept for about three weeks, all right?’ She waited. After a minute, she heard a light woosh of breath and smelt the pungent smoke of an extinguished candle. Then rustling as Lila lay down.

‘I knew you’d come, Ana,’ Lila said.

Ana didn’t answer, but lay quietly listening. Minutes rolled by. When Lila’s breathing deepened, she pulled back the cover and stared at the darkness, trying to stay awake for when Cole came. It wasn’t true that she hadn’t given up anything of value. She’d left Jasper behind. And while half-truths and mistrust on both their parts had always meant there was a great chasm between them, she cared about Jasper. She worried that her leaving him might jeopardise his recovery.

*

There was a pulse. A throbbing vibration deep in her chest. But it was coming from outside. Not inside. Waves of energy so powerful they shook her in her bones.

Paper rain fluttered down like confetti. Wrappers the size of hands, grasping at her. They were all she could see. Filling up the street. A river of litter. It rose up her legs. The current tugging. She resisted.

But the pulse was worming into her thoughts. Blocking off connections. Freezing bits of her brain that knew how to control her limbs. She stopped fighting the paper river and concentrated on blocking the vibration. Pushed it back with her mind.

The river picked her up. It swept her through the grey street. Now it was as high as her waist. Getting higher. Panic twisted inside her. She no longer controlled her body. She was going to drown. Squeezing her eyes shut, images spun in her head. A circle. Snow. A rabbit. Out of control.

Then it all stopped. She was standing on the front garden path of a semi-detached house within arm’s reach of a five-foot tall girl. The girl had an undefined face, as if it had yet to be painted. But the eyes were large deep layers of black.

‘We’ve been looking for you,’ the girl said. Suddenly, Ana saw others. They materialised from nothing. Dozens of vague, featureless faces surrounded her. Each with the same black eyes and a look that thrust into her body and tried to tear out her soul.

*

Ana sucked in her breath as though she’d been held under water. Her eyes snapped open. Another nightmare. She shivered, though the air drifting through the longhouse window was mild and summery.

 On the mattress beside her, she heard the deep exhalations of Lila sleeping. How long had she been out? Where was Cole?

Quietly, she rolled over and froze. In the steely glitter of the moon a shadow sat next to Lila’s prostrate form. The figure held a six-inch blade against the white skin of Lila’s throat.

‘Bad dreams?’ the voice asked. A soft Irish accent. An accent Ana knew wasn’t dragged out of her unconsciousness. This wasn’t a dream.

Warden Dombrant had already found her.

Wooden Star

Ana sat up silently, tugging the blanket around her. Warden Dombrant was her father’s right hand man. He’d been at her father’s house the morning of Jasper’s abduction. He had come looking for Ana when she was staying on Cole’s boat. And when she returned from Three Mills, before her joining with Jasper, he had been her personal watchman and gatekeeper.

Her father must have put a tracer in her dressing gown, after all.

‘Listen carefully,’ the Warden said. ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody. But what happens here is up to you.’ Lila stirred and murmured something in her sleep. ‘It would be better if she didn’t wake up.’

Ana’s breathing came shallow and quick, her eyes glued to the knife, the fine sleek edge touching Lila’s throat.

‘What do you want?’ she croaked, hoping Lila was a deep sleeper.

‘I want the disc you took from your father.’

‘And?’

‘That’s it.’

Her gaze moved from the knife to Dombrant’s face. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the Warden’s roundish, weathered features took shape. He was broad and stocky, but fast.

‘What about me?’

The Warden shook his head. She stared at him. It was impossible to know whether he was telling the truth. But then the recording probably was more of a priority to her father right now than she was.

‘I haven’t got the disc,’ she said.

Dombrant’s eyes sharpened.

‘I had to hand it in,’ she added quickly. ‘They’re not allowed electronics here. It’s all stored in a building where they control who comes and goes.’ She faltered. Dombrant would want her to take him there. Across the Heath. In the dark. And while it would be good to lead the Warden out of the settlement so that Lila and no one else got hurt, once it was just the two of them in the middle of the Heath, Cole wouldn’t know where to look for her. ‘They won’t like that you’ve come over the wall without permission,’ she said.

‘I need to warn you.’ Dombrant’s voice was low and gravelly. ‘I have a knife and a Stinger. Try anything and it won’t be you, but some innocent bystander like your friend here, that gets hurt. Clear?’ The pulse in Ana’s temples throbbed. She nodded.

Lila was now lightly snoring, but Ana needed to get that knife away from her friend’s throat.