The Stolen Child (55 page)

Arsha nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.

“But Mum... She fell apart.  It wasn't
just the
money, or looking after me.  It was him.  She hated him, and she missed him.  
E
very day.  It was...”

Rachael tailed off.  Arsha noticed that the girl wasn't looking at the playground anymore, but at something in the distance.  One of the tall buildings that formed the skyline, a dark blocky shape eerily reminiscent of a tombstone.

“
So then
I'd come out here to be alone
again
.  To
be
away from her.  From that place.  There were older kids that hung out round here.  I started hanging out with them.  They'd score ciders and forties.  It wasn't much, but I guess it didn't take a lot to get me smashed.  I liked it, because it helped me to forget about everything else.  Some of the kids liked to run.  
T
hey'd show me how to do flips and drops and stuff on the climbing frames.  Taught me stuff about 'parkour' and all that.  
We'd get drunk and make each other do stupid dares and stuff.  
Sometimes, it was like things were al
l
right.”

“Is that it?” Arsha said, looking across at the distant building.  “The place where you lived?”

“McAllen Estate.  
It's
horrible there.  Just four blocks of flats and a little square in the middle.  I hated it.”

Arsha considered this for a moment, still feeling all too much like she was falling with no safety line.
 

“I... I think we should go there,”
s
he said.

"I can't go back there."  

Rachael shook her head firmly.  "It's not...  I didn't even close the door."
"When?" Arsha said.
"Nothing. It don't matter," Rachael mumbled, her voice barely audible.

“Rach, you have to take me back there.  I need to see.”

“No.  You don't.  You think you want to, but you don't.  No one wants to see.  They just look past you and pretend it's not like it seems.  Because it's easier than knowing what really goes on around them.”

“
So show me,” Arsha said, firmly.  
“You have to take me there.  Please Rachael,
y
ou have to show me.”

“Says who?”
the girl snapped back at her with a sudden fire.
  “I don't have to take you nowhere.  I don't care.  I don't want you asking all these questions.  I don't want none of this.”

“Please, Rachael.  
You have to,
”
she said, hearing the desperation in her own voice.
 

“Why?  Why should I?”
Rachael shouted, leaping up from the swing to stand with her fists clenched at her side.
 

“Because I need to
know
,” Arsha said,
the words catching in her throat
.  “
Because I'm your sister and I need to know why
you're hurting like this.  Because we made a promise.”
 

Rachael looked at her with cold, penetrating eyes.  It was a vicious look, taking her measure, searching for some sign of motive.  
Of weakness.
 

“Yeah.  Sure.  Come on then, I'll show you,”
t
he girl snarled
as she
stalked away
across the empty park.
 

Soon enough they moved from damp grass to tarred black roads with faded lines painted across their surfaces.  Street signs clustered every corner, some twisted at odd angles or painted over with scrawled markings.  Graffiti adorned almost every spare inch of wall.  Here and there a withered husk of a tree or a bush grew, all showing signs of mistreatment.

At one intersection Arsha looked to the side to see a mangy looking dog wander across the road.  It had a collar, but it could not have been fed properly in weeks.

They made a final turning and the cluster of tombstone buildings stood before them, four identical towers arranged in a square.  As they approached Rachael's footsteps slowed.  Arsha saw that the girl's hands were shaking.  They stopped at the entrance to the courtyard at the centre of the four towers.

Everything was grey.  The buildings were some sort of stone, formed seamlessly.
  From the centre of the courtyard she could see the tiered walkways rising up around them, lined with iron railings, the paint long since peeled.  Stairs lead up on each side, all exposed to the open air.  Along each walkway she saw a row of doors.  Once they might have been blue, but the paint had long since faded away, or been covered by layers of graffiti.
 

Foul odours arose from blotchy stains
on the floors and walls
, some obviously recent.  The freshest stains were the only thing that seemed new.  
Piles of shiny black bags overflowed a yellow container, their rotting contents spilling out where the black skin had split and peeled back.
 

“What
kind of place is this
?” Arsha said, looking around.

“Council flats.  
Hundreds like 'em, all over this city.  They just sort of stamp 'em out, like machinery.”
 

“Why?”

“It's where you live, if you ain't got nothing else.  If you ain't lucky enough to have a good job, or good education, or whatever other bollocks it is they want from you.  Right face, right clothes, all that.”

Arsha nodded.  She'd seen places like this before in some of the larger cities she'd been to.  Factory workers houses, built by the dozen in identical rows.  Narrow, crowded buildings, sometimes holding a family on every floor, or so her dad had told her.  She felt the sting of the memory, and pushed it aside.
 

“I hated it here,” Rachael said.  “
Next door was always drunk, and upstairs you could hear 'em shouting all hours.  Some of the other kids were alright, but most of 'em were right horrible.”

She tailed off.
 

“
Well i
t don't matter.  It's not home now.”

Suddenly the girl turned, and began to walk away.
 

“Go see whatever you want to,”
Rachael growled.
  “I'm
outta here
.”

As the girl swept past her, Arsha wondered if she only imagined that Rachael was holding back tears.  She turned, reaching to grasp at the girl's hand, and as she looked back the way they had come she saw something that seemed to turn her body to stone.

Where before there had been a city, stretching out into the far distance, now she saw on
ly
a wall of grey,
almost
like fog.  Something deeply unnatural, utterly impossible.  It was like staring at nothing at all.  Where it met the street and the surrounding buildings there was only a ragged line, like a broken edge, as if whatever had been beyond that grey wall had simply been torn away in one swift motion.

Just ahead of her Rachael was also staring up at the endless grey wall.  
Where it touched touched the surface, the road was crumbling away, the fragments flying off into nothingness as if swept up by a violent wind.  The buildings too were being eaten by the grey wall.  Trees, street signs, all shredded into chaff, an inch at a time.
 

“What is it?”
Rachael
said, her voice trembling.

“I don't know,” Arsha said.  “But it's getting closer.”

“
What's that mean?”
 

“
I think it's falling apart.  This world.  Rachael, you created this.  Everything here, you made this when we went through the gateway.  It's the only thing that makes sense.  This can't be the real London… It doesn't even look like this anymore.  When you went through, you made this place.”
 

Rachael's mouth pressed into a hard line.

“
Alright smart-mouth, so where do we go now?” she growled.
 

“Inside,
I think.”  Arsha said.
 

“No.  I ain't going back in there.  No way.”

“Rachael, we have to.  It's the only place left.”

“Why?  Why do you keep... why can't you just leave it alone?” Rachael said, her voice rising to a shriek as she rounded on Arsha angrily.  “You keep asking all these stupid questions, keep pushing at stuff and it's not right.  You don't belong here and you don't have no right to... I never wanted to go back to any of this.  
I didn't want to remember.  I didn't want to.
”

Flexing her hands in agitation, Rachael began to pace in circles.  She swung a vicious kick at a loose piece of
stone,
which sailed into the wall of empty grey, vanishing instantly.

Arsha said nothing.  She just turned and began walking towards the
nearest stairs
.

“Hey.  Where you going?” Rachael called after her.

“Inside,” Arsha said, with a sullen shrug.  “Come along if you want to.”

“Hey.  Hey don't go.  Don't leave me out here,”
Rachael called after her.  At first, Arsha kept on walking.  Then at the bottom of the stairs she turned and looked back.
 

Rachael was on her knees, her hands tangled in her hair, face twisted in a look of torment.  The girl seemed to be frozen
against the hard ground
like some awful statue.  
Her stomach twisting, Arsha knelt down in front of the girl.
 

“I don't know why you're doing this.  I didn't want you here,”
Rachael whispered, her voice hoarse.
 

“I think you did,” Arsha said, gently.

“Why do you keep saying that.  Why do you keep acting like I planned all this.  Like I ever wanted any of this?”

“I didn't mean that.  Rachael, I...”  

Arsha looked down at the paving stones.  

“I know you didn't want this.  I didn't either.  Fates, Rachael... When I think about what happened back there.  About those people getting killed.  About those men that were after you.  About Dad... What he did.  It's like my heart's going to collapse, like it'll just crumple
in
on itself completely.  
And I can't do anything to stop it.  
I'm here with you, and I'm trying to make sense of all this.  And I need you.  I need you to help me find a way for us to get out of here.”

Rachael
looked up, just enough for Arsha to see her eyes under the tangle of her hair
.

“What makes you think I want to get out of here?”
the girl whispered.
 

For a moment, Arsha couldn't think of anything to say.
 

“I mean really,” Rachael continued, “where else am I supposed to go?  I tried being part of Justin's world, but I never belonged there.  I tried being part of your world, and all I did was make things worse for you.  So where else am I supposed to go?”

“You know what?  I don't know.  I'm just... Just some stupid little kid who's spent her whole
life
hanging off her daddy's arm.  So I don't know what comes after this.  Fates, Rachael,
I just found out that I'm not even human.
 
How am I supposed to answer something like that, when I don't even know where I belong anymore?
  But I'm going to find out.  And you're coming with me.”

Rachael looked up
at
her, eyes wide with fear.  The girl didn't say a word, but
when Arsha stood and offered her hand, Rachael took it
.  
They turned and walked together towards the stairs.  Rachael lead
them
up
to the third floor.  A long row of doorways stretched out
ahead of them.
 
At the end of the row, one door stood ever so slightly ajar.
 

The crack was wide enough to reveal a glimpse of a filthy beige carpet and a few scattered cigarette ends.  As they approached she caught a breath of foul air that slipped through.
 

“I can't,”
Rachael
said,
her voice choking off into a whimper.
 

Arsha said nothing.  She just took her sister's hand in her own, and with the other she pushed at the door, swinging it wide open to reveal the room beyond.

The apartment was vile.  
The
carpet bore innumerabl
e
stains
.  Tiny brown and black circles dotted the fabric, each tailed by a little streak of grey ash like shooting stars.  The furnishings were similarly pitted and scarred.  A battered couch with threadbare cushions faced a flashing box full of colours and light and noise.  A clock ticked away on a mantelpiece, next to a framed photograph with cracked glass.  The photograph showed a woman and a girl.  Rachael and her mother,
just as
they had been
when she glimpsed them on the merry-go-round
.  
There was a man with them, his blonde hair cut razor short, a smile on his face.
  The frame was
nearly
concealed by a dozen empty cans, each reeking of sour beer.  More empty cans littered every surface, and more still were strewn across the floor.  
L
ayers of peeling wallpaper covered the walls.  In some places the paper had been scratched or worn right through to the plaster.

The woman lay sprawled across the threadbare couch.  One arm trailed to the floor, knuckles brushing the carpet.  Between the fingers a cigarette had burned to a stub, leaving tiny red marks on her
pale skin
.  
T
he
tips of her
fingers were stained a dirty yellow.  She wore a
green
sweater, one sleeve rolled up.  Her arm was pitted with a thousand tiny scars, and a fresh scab seemed to have formed there just recently.  Her mouth hung slightly open,
yellowed
teeth as uneven as the buildings outside.  The lips were painted
a deep crimson
.  Blonde hair, long and matted, sprayed out across the arm of the couch
in
a shower of gold.

The woman's eyelids were open but the eyes were rolled back, showing only a ghastly white.  
In spite of how monstrously transformed it all was
, Arsha still recognised the face
of the woman in the photograph.
 
It was o
lder
and
harder,
but the same shape still lurked beneath the layers of decay
.