The Vanished (5 page)

I found Angela a few feet away from the gateway to the castle. She had a dirty tissue in her hand, and Cam was stood next to her rambling in his thick accent, trying to make her laugh. I noticed she cracked one smile before she saw me and then frowned.

“I have nothing to say to you.” She narrowed her eyes.

“We need to talk.” I grabbed her by the arm and led her away from Cam who shook his head in either exasperation or confusion. “We’re going to sort this out. We have to… for Daniel’s sake.”

Angela pulled her arm away, but she didn’t run off. “Fine.”

We found a spot under a large Chestnut tree on the way to the farm. It had taken us about ten minutes to walk there which we’d spent in silence. I adjusted myself under the tree, moving a stone from under my thigh. Angela sat with her arms hugging her knees, staring into the distance. She didn’t look at me.

“I never meant to hurt you,” I said at last. “When we moved to Area 14 I didn’t know what to expect. My best friend in Area 10 wanted to turn me in, to tell everyone about my gift. I didn’t think I’d ever trust anyone again. And then I met you.” Angela twitched her head towards me. I carried on with a choke in my throat. “Despite everything I… trusted you. There’s this special… thing about you, Angela. I don’t know how to explain it but––”

“There’s nothing special about me,” she snapped. “You’re the one with the stupid power.” She spoke the works with a mocking sneer. “You and Daniel. You bonded straight away because of your stupid powers.” She sniffed and wiped away a tear. “I’m just boring and normal. You don’t want me around anymore.”

“You’re not boring or normal.” I sighed. “Do you know how much I would love to be more like you? To be able to make friends and not have to worry about secrets?”

“Don’t you dare do that,” Angela said, her nostrils flaring. “Don’t you pretend that you’d rather be me because it isn’t true. You’d trade it all in to be with Daniel and you know it.” She dabbed her eyes with the tissue. “You know how I feel about him.”

“I’m sorry.” I pulled stalks of grass out of the ground, crushing them between finger and thumb. “I don’t want us to fight. We’ve started a new life and I want us to be best friends like always.”

“Do you love him back?” she asked.

I floundered. “I… I don’t know how I feel. Not yet.”

Angela’s back straightened and she thumped the ground with her fist. “You know what you are? You’re nothing but a little slut. You want everything and everyone on your terms. You meet Sebastian in the middle of the night, and then, when you were bored of him, you wanted Daniel at your feet. I hate you. I hate you… you bitch.” She jumped to her feet and stormed away with her arms folded around her chest leaving me alone on the grass with my mouth hanging open.

*

It was funny how things could go from feeling so good to so miserable in such a short space of time. I had my dad back, and yes it was going to be a long road to forgiving him, but at least I had him back. I’d found people like me, people I was connected to, who could be my friends. I had Daniel. He was well and alive. I had Sebastian, someone who could be another good friend. I had Ali and Mary and the rest of the Scavengers, people I wanted to keep in my life. But I’d lost Angela; the girl who helped me and convinced me to be myself. Angela was my best friend in the entire world. She was the girl I wanted to take under my wing and treat like the little sister I’d always wanted. Would she ever forgive me?

Before she met me, she had a mother who loved her and a huge crush on Daniel. Then I moved to town and took Daniel away from her, helped take her mum away and then forced her out of her home because of a mistake I made. If it wasn’t for me breaking into Mrs Murgatroyd’s home, she wouldn’t have needed to leave Area 14. No wonder she hated me. I sighed and leaned back under the tree with closed eyes, feeling the cool grass under my head and the soft breeze tickle at my nose. There was a pleasant floral smell in the air and I spread my fingers out in the grass, trying to block all of the worries out of my mind. No Enforcers. No Ministry. No Angela. Just the smell of wild flowers and the rustle of leaves above my head.

As I began to relax, I noticed an eerie sound, something which was so ethereal that at first I thought I imagined it. It was the sound of voices and it drifted on the breeze as though it was the wind itself singing to me. I opened my eyes and sat up, realising that the voices I heard were not coming from the wind or my mind. They were people on the Compound.

I stood and followed the direction of the singing. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Most of the music I’d heard was bubble-gum pop played on our screens, from London of course, or the soulful jazz my Father listened to in the basement. This was closer to the jazz, but while my dad’s music had an eerie melancholy to it this music gleamed with positivity.

With each footstep the music soared in crescendo until my body began to respond. My chest constricted as the notes reached their highs. My fingers and toes tingled as I followed the sweet sound. It was coming from a paddock close to the farm, and I realised that it was the same place where I had noticed trailers parked in a curious circle a few hours ago. Inside the circle of the trailers people stood and swayed. They wore white robes with flowers in their hair. The early midday sun cast them in a halo of bright yellow as the sweet melody drew me nearer.

“I wouldn’t get too close if I were ye.”

I turned around to see Ali approaching. He strode towards me.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“The Children of the People,” Ali said, turning his head into the direction of the noise. “Ye don’t want te get mixed up wi’them. They’re… strange… te say the least. They live here, but they don’t really partake in anything – if you know what I mean. We leave them be and they leave us alone.”

They smiled with pure happiness. The trailer doors opened and out ran dozens of children, tiny babies in the arms of teenagers, smiling young girls with their hair in braids holding the hands of small toddlers. They laughed and giggled in their floating white cotton tunics. They ran to the centre of the circle and joined in the singing, all except one girl, a little younger than Angela, perhaps about thirteen. She stood in the centre of the circle while the others sang towards her.

Ali stopped and watched with me. The Children of the People threw flower garlands towards the girl.

“What are they doing?” I said.

“They’re celebrating her change to womanhood,” Ali said.

My eyes opened in surprise. “You mean…?”

“Yep,” Ali answered.

My cheeks warmed, and I was certain my face had turned bright red.

“That is so creepy,” I whispered.

“Not te them,” Ali said. “They believe that pregnancy is sacred. They think that women are sacred.”

We moved away from the Children of the People. I didn’t quite know what to make of them or their ideas, but their singing was beautiful.

“What did you mean when you said they don’t partake in anything?” I asked Ali.

“Everyone on the Compound gets given a job, or sometimes more than one, depending on where yer talents lie.”

“What’s your job?”

“I run a market stall for the things we bring back from the outside when I’m with the Scavengers,” he said. He stood with one leg jutted out and a hand on his hip, confidence overflowing. He wore tight jeans and a black shirt open at the neck. His boots were pointed and there were coloured beads wrapped around his wrists. I’d not noticed it in the morning but now I realised that he dressed unlike anyone I’d ever seen before. “I’m on my way to the farm if you want to come, might give you a feel of what goes on around here. I have some negotiating to do with the supplier there.”

“Sure,” I said with a shrug. I should have gone back to my dad but I didn’t feel like seeing the people I’d run away from. I seemed to be doing a lot of running away in the Compound.

“Did ye find yer dad?” Ali said to me, his voice softening.

“Yes,” I answered.

“I thought so.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s written all over yer face, kid,” he said with a laugh. “Ye’d may as well have ‘troubled thoughts’ scrawled across yer forehead.”

He ruffled my hair like I was a pet and then laughed at my frown. I folded my arms and scowled.

“So, not over-the-moon te see the old man, eh?” he said.

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Not ready te talk about it either by the looks of things.” He stopped and put his hand on my arm, turning me to face him. I was going to have to get used to members of the opposite sex touching me like that. “Look, kid. I know ye’ve been through the mill over the last few weeks. I owe it te Matthew to keep ye safe while he’s not around, and I’m gonna do that fer him. Now, I’m not stupid. Ye dunnae want te let yeself trust another person who might leave ye or get taken away or whatever, so I know it’d take some time, but just so ye know… ma door is always open. I’m here for ye, kid.”

He slapped me on the arm and with that we were back to walking towards the farm. The only strange thing was the tears in my eyes.

The weeks passed and I learned more about the Compound. Ali was my guide. He showed me where the vegetables are grown and the fields are ploughed. I found out how disgusting a pig pen smells and what it feels like to stand in a cow pat. A goat tried to eat the sleeve of my jumper and chickens chased me away from their eggs. He told me more about General Lloyd and Dr Woods, two men he didn’t care for, and how they monopolised the Council, leaving Mary out of decisions, despite her often being the voice of reason. I discovered that births, deaths and new arrivals were documented even though the Children of the People hated it.

I spent time with my dad and the group of people that the rest of the Compound called the “Freaks”. I was one of them and I trained with them. I got to know that Mike had a wicked sense of humour, Kitty was the most hyperactive person I’ve ever met and Hiro was the wisest person I would ever know. We painted the barn together, set up punch bags and targets. We spent the days meditating on our powers, learning martial arts and drinking pots of tea. Like the Children of the People we were a group of people that were generally left alone which meant that we weren’t allocated jobs. Dad said that it was just as well because we had more important things to spend time on – developing our powers.

Angela ignored me. She was given a job on the farm, milking cows and tending to vegetables. She lived with the rest of the farmers – in trailers positioned near to the fields, barns and make-shift outbuildings. At my request, Daniel told her about his feelings towards her as a sister, but it didn’t seem to help matters. Some nights I would see her hanging around the castle gates, wringing her hands and walking back and forth. I guessed she wanted to see Daniel but didn’t know what to say or do or whether she was welcome. I tried not to care after the horrible things she’d said but deep down I just missed her and wanted my friend back. At least Cam enjoyed her company, I saw him cracking jokes to try and cheer her up, leaning in a little closer each time. His face lit up when she smiled.

Sebastian was given a tent to himself with some basic equipment. There weren’t many in the Compound who would give him a chance, but Ali gave him a job helping out on his market stall with Ginge. If he did well, there was a chance he would get a place in the Scavengers. I wondered what it was like working with Ginge. I’d never known anyone so laconic. But whenever I saw Sebastian he had the biggest smile I’d ever seen. Whatever happened on the stall, he seemed to be enjoying it.

I split my time between tours of the Compound with Ali, training with the Freaks, talking to Sebastian on the stall and visiting Daniel. I loved every minute with him. I loved our long talks and our little routine where I would eat dinner sat on the chair next to his hospital bed, telling him every detail about my day; who I’d talked to, what I’d learned about the Compound and where I visited. I’d never really enjoyed talking about myself before, but with Daniel I found that I could tell him anything. Along with our chats I relished in the fact that each day he looked better and after two weeks we could go for walks around the Compound.

“How many girls have had babies since you’ve been on the ward?” I asked him as we walked towards the farm. I wanted to show him the Children of the People. I’d heard them singing and knew that another ceremony was about to begin.

“I lost count. Maybe half a dozen.”

“Does that seem like a lot to you? How many people live here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. It was indescribable to say how much I loved to see the sunlight shining through his yellow hair. “The Compound isn’t that big.”

“One of these days I’m going to look in the register and find out. It’s weird. Don’t you think it’s
weird
?”

He laughed. “It’s good to see you back to your old self.”

“What do you mean?” The wind whipped my hair. It was longer now, almost to my cheekbones.

“Finding a cause. Something to fight against.” He slipped his fingers in between mine. We were entwined. Heat tickled at my stomach.

“Is that a bad thing?”

He chuckled. “No. It’s just a you thing.”

It was another sunny day with a cool breeze, in Scotland it was never warm, and in the distance I heard the sounds of children playing. There was a school set up in the castle, but it always seemed to be suspended when the sun was out. Behind us the leaves rustled on the old Chestnut tree. Ahead of us the sweet sounds of the Children of the People swelled and rose. It was beautiful.

“I’ve never heard anything like that,” Daniel said with a lowered voice. “It’s almost like the hymns that my mum used to sing, but with more… I dunno what… layers I think.”

We approached with quiet steps; two outsiders observing from afar. I held Daniel back so that they wouldn’t notice us.

“Ali said they don’t like to be watched,” I explained.

The people swayed and danced, flinging their hands to the sky. Another young girl received her garlands and I explained to Daniel about the purpose of the ceremony. After she took her flowers, the rest of the group held hands while the children danced in the centre. At the end of the song the men broke the circle and lifted the young girl above her heads where she stretched out her body and contorted so that her head was thrown back. The men carried the girl around their paddock before putting her back on the ground. Then the ceremony was over.

“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Daniel said.

“Yep,” I agreed. “I don’t know what to make of it either.”

“Maybe they’re harmless,” Daniel suggested.

Or maybe they weren’t. Despite the bliss of my first few weeks in the Compound I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. Perhaps I was just suspicious from Area 14, but I didn’t like the attitudes towards girls. They either seemed to be young mothers, heralded as some sort of sacred brood mare or carrying out domestic tasks. At the end of the day when the men came back from the fields or from fixing the barns or tending to water pumps they would collapse next to a campfire and drink beer. They never spent much time with the women. I’d come from a place where girls and boys were segregated. Now it seemed that adults segregated themselves.

“Hey.” He yanked on my hand to bring me back to reality. “This is my first time out of hospital and you’re spending it worrying about everyone else.” His lop-sided grin was back and that warm feeling spread from my stomach to my heart.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

We moved closer and my heart quickened. I reached for his free hand so that all of our fingers were entwined and we pressed our foreheads together so that I could see nothing but his sea coloured eyes – those eyes which could so easily turn into thunderstorms and become endless pools of trouble. I was lost in them. Helpless at sea. Our noses touched and my face and neck burned. Our lips touched and his hands were clutching me to his body. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He tasted salty and sweet and something that was just Daniel. My kiss with Sebastian had been pleasant. This was everything else. It was desperate and essential and everything I wanted and more. Heat travelled up and down my body, so hot that I thought we were going to combust. My hands were in his hair, his golden hair, so unruly, so him.

When we broke I had to catch my breath. I was cold without his body next to mine. My fingers drifted to my sore lips, and I looked down at my shoes. Daniel leaned forward and brushed my hair away from my eyes.

“That’s better,” he said. His eyes changed into thunderstorms. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

I felt the smile spread across my face before I even realised I was smiling. “I think I have some idea.”

Daniel put his arm across my shoulder like I’d seen GEM boys do to GEM girls back in Area 14. It was like an unreal fairy tale. Blemished girls didn’t live in fairy tales. We were yelled at and trodden on and told that we’re useless. I didn’t deserve to be wanted or loved. Yet here I was with the boy I loved, walking snuggled up to each other without a care in the world. I wrapped my arm around his back and sunk my body into his side. We fit like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Everything was right. I forgot about my worries. I walked Daniel back to the hospital carefree.