Night Witches (12 page)

Haze is utterly eye-wide with fear. She stutters, ‘It’s the witch in the woods, come for me. First she sent wolves, now these!’

‘Quiet!’ shouts Reef, and because he’s a Scrutiner everyone obeys.

I want to tell Haze,
There’s no such thing as witches
, but I can’t speak. I’m staring at a puddle of dirty, brown water in the bottom of the ditch. It vibrates every time a bomb falls. In between the ripples I snatch sight of a vision – a crippled bridge and a drowned girl.

The corpse I see is me.

R
eef connects as soon as he can wipe the mud from his keypad. For a moment he doesn’t speak.

‘What do we do? Where do we go? Will they come back?’ babbles the big woman next to me.

Reef checks his updates again and slowly stands. I’m chilled when his body warmth leaves mine. He jumps up on to the side of an overturned truck and shouts for attention.

‘Listen to me, everyone! Our priority is to get any military vehicles that can still be driven over to the far bank of the river. Push them across the bridge if you have to. Get those wrecks out of the way! Carry cans of Slick by hand if you can! You all heard me –
move
!’

Haze hauls herself out of the ditch, trailing revolting green weeds that shouldn’t even be growing this far from the forest. ‘That’s right, get to the river,’ she echoes Reef. ‘River running, witches retching . . .’

She makes me think of that thing Pedla Rue said, about how, if you need to get away from a witch, you must ring your bells and run to the river. But it’s the Crux who are coming, not monsters from the Morass.

I scramble after Reef. ‘It’ll only slow people down, pushing trucks and lugging Slick. Shouldn’t they just run . . . ?’

‘Empty that school bus and push it into the ditch if it won’t start!’ Reef shouts into the crowd.

‘Out, out, out!’ calls a teacher from the bus, and tiny evacuees come popping out of the bus and falling in the mud.

‘Give us a hand back here!’ yells a grey-haired woman from the back of the bus. ‘All push together!’

‘Can someone help me with the children?’ the teacher asks.

I head for the evacuees. ‘Clear the road or carry a canister, Rain Aranoza,’ Reef commands.

‘But . . .’

‘Aura’s orders!’

‘But those Screamers could be back any moment, and I’m sure I can hear traptions nearby . . .’

‘Heave!’ grunt the people pushing the bus.

The big woman stumbles into the road. ‘Did you say traptions? Are there traptions coming?’

‘Keep together! Everyone hold hands and follow me,’ the teacher calls to the kids.

‘Push!’ rasps the woman behind the bus.

‘Save the Slick first!’ Reef shouts to the teacher.

I know you shouldn’t question a Scrutiner’s orders or tug on his tunic to get his attention, but I’m utterly, devastatingly certain something terrible is about to happen, so I do anyway, insisting, ‘We’ve got to get everyone across the river fast!’

Reef shakes his head. He won’t look at me. ‘I told you – Aura’s orders. The Slick must be saved.’

‘Before children?’

‘You heard what I said, the same as everyone else!’ He jumps down from the upturned truck, sets his shoulder to the bus and starts to push. There’s no way they’ll shift it. I muscle into a spot myself.

‘Heave!’ we all chant together. ‘One, two, three,
heave
!’

Strength flows out of me. The bus starts to shift. It topples at the ditch edge . . . then slides down into the water with an obscene kiss-smack noise. Reef grabs the grey-haired woman to stop her skidding down after it. It’s the first time I’ve seen him truly dirty and dishevelled. He’s been hit by shrapnel. A thin line of blood trickles down his forehead and stains the inked tattoo on one eyelid.

Next he directs people to a cascade of Slick canisters fallen from a truck, telling them to drag or roll them to the bridge. ‘You too!’ he shouts at the teacher, who is desperately trying to look calm so the kids – some of them so tiny they’re knee-deep in mud – don’t get even more scared than they are already.

‘Stay together. Keep away from the traffic,’ he tells them. ‘Get to the bridge if you can. I’ll be back for you soon. I’ve just got to help move those cans.’

The children stand there, petrified.

I drop the can of Slick I’m carrying and wade towards them.

‘Rain!’ Reef comes right behind me and grabs my arm to stop me. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, Rain, but Aura knows best how to win this war . . .’

I shake him off. ‘Does Aura know how it feels to have a Screamer firing at you? To get crushed under traption tracks? To get blown to pieces like, like . . .’ I wave my hands at the nasty lumps of people-shapes left in the mud by Screamer attacks. ‘Like
them
?’

‘I can’t ignore Aura,’ he says quietly.

‘Can’t, or
won’t
?’

Time slows. There are just the two of us balancing in the mud.

Reef takes a deep breath. He stares at the Slick. At the kids. At me. ‘Rain, you’ve been deafened by the Screamer noise.’

‘No, I—’

‘And your keypad is too wet to connect.’

‘No, it’s fine . . . Oh. You mean, you think I’m a bit shell-shocked? Not quite responsible for my actions? And you’re too busy salvaging Slick to stop me disobeying orders?’

He nearly smiles. ‘You’re confused and panicky.’

‘Right.’

He bends down to my ear and murmurs, ‘But still very lovely.’

Then he’s straight and tall again, directing operations on the road. A subtle hand gesture from him tells me –
Go
–
go!

I remember images of River Seaward from the stream-screen – a placid stretch of calm, covered in canoes and rowboats. Now, after all the rain and snow-melt, Seaward is in full spring flood, a surging torrent of brown waves tossing tree trunks around like toothpicks.

I herd evacuees this far. Now all I have to do is get them single-file across the bridge without anyone being squashed by rumbling trucks or dutiful citizens lugging canisters of Slick. On the far side of the bridge a group of soldiers has arrived, and they’re already setting up anti-aircraft guns. Better still, I hear the unmistakable sound of People’s Number Forty-eight Fighter planes coming to our rescue, harrying the Screamers, hurtling in for the kill. Hurrah for Rodina! I hustle the evacuees forward,
quick, quick, quick
.

‘Don’t be afraid!’ I shout at the running children. Me, I’m terrified. There’s no way I’m leaving land. I don’t care if traptions come gobbling mud, or witches even, whooshing through the clouds on black-feathered wings. Let them come! I won’t cross that seething water!

On the far side of the bridge I spy Haze gathering up children who’ve made it over safely. She pauses to stare at me – a gaze of pure malevolence. Then she points and laughs. ‘You can’t cross!’ she mouths.

Can’t. Won’t. As the sky-battle boils above, I cower below. I think I hear Reef’s voice through the chaos.

‘Run, Rain! Get to safety!’

What about him?

‘Get on the bridge!’

His words explode as more bombs tumble down. The bridge is hit. Girders are blown apart, stick-figures fly high and fall, and the whole structure tips sideways with resentful groans.

Not everybody falls.

Halfway along the tangle of toppled girders is a little girl in school uniform, the last of the evacuees. She’s clinging to a railing and screaming screaming screaming. She won’t be able to hold on for long.

What can I do? What good would Aura be if I bothered to connect? There’d just be a message, something like
status update: situation precarious, please wait for action-requirements, please wait, please wait, please wait

If not Aura, what about praying? I close my eyes and make something up.

Oh god-that-doesn’t-exist, I need to get over this river . . .

Where are the saynts with wings, swooping down to carry me to safety? Where are the bolts of god-light and bell chimes of jubilation? All I get is a sudden swirl of black birds flying in a noisy corkscrew overhead.

There’s just me, and what I need to do.

‘Hold tight,’ I croak to the girl. ‘I’m coming!’

I step on to a twisted girder. It’s no good. Even when I close my eyes I can still hear the wild water of River Seaward. There’s an awful lurch as the bridge wreckage drops lower, groans, shudders . . . and holds. How is it that climbing on to the wing of the Storm was nothing to me, but this bridge-crossing is agony?

‘Hold tight,’ I say again, more to myself than to anyone else. Oh god, the Screamers are returning – the
noise
 . . . ! The girl’s howls are drowned by their far more monstrous wail.

I don’t know how I reach her but I do, just as the bridge is peppered with bullets. I should be able to stay balanced and get us both across. I should . . . but I can’t. Panicking, the girl fights me like she’s a whirlwind, or like I’m a wolf. My head spins, my feet slip, and the best I can do is hold on to her as she pulls us both off the bridge and down into the flood.

We plunge.

It’s like hitting a broken wall; being a salad tossed by a tornado; having a bath in angry ice. Which way up? I want to breathe. Can’t breathe. Want to swim. Can’t swim. Want to hold on to the girl . . . can’t hold her. Got her coat, her collar . . . got nothing but her coat. She’s spinning away under the waves. I stretch and kick and stretch again till I’ve got it – her hand, her cold, bare hand. Images tumble round my head like the river water – visions of an old, old woman lying in bed, dressed in tubes and a hospital robe.

The girl doesn’t die today!

That gives me the strength to surge up and, quick, breathe – suck all the sky in at once. I fight the water, fight the water, fight the water . . . lose the fight, get dragged down, down deeper, down darker, a strange turmoil. Ears are screeching, heart is breaking, hand-hold weakening, then . . . PAIN – as if my hair is being torn out! Let go of me, let go of me, let go of me . . .

‘Let go!’ I cough, turning to sick up Seaward water on to the riverbank.

Steen Verdessica is straddling me, sodden from scalp to socks. ‘I’m giving you the kiss of life,’ he says, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. ‘I’m not sure you’ve properly recovered yet . . .’

‘Get off me!’

I shove him away and grope around in cold mud for the still little body at my side. ‘Is she . . . ?’

‘Alive, don’t worry, thanks to you. And you’re alive, thanks to me.’

I gather the girl up and keep her close for warmth. She’s breathing at least.

‘You dragged me out by my hair!’

‘Good job it’s long then,’ Steen replies, tweaking one of my wet braids.

I notice he’s shivering and his wrists are bubbling red.

‘What happened to your handcuffs?’

‘Burned off, thanks to a truck fire. Bioweave stinks when on fire. I thought it best to be mobile, given the situation on the road. Traptions aren’t subtle machines. I didn’t rate my chances of convincing them I’m on their side.’

‘What about Reef?’

Steen pulls away from me. ‘I don’t care about him. It’s you I was worried about.’

‘You . . . 
meant
to jump in and save me? Why would you do that? We’re the enemy to you!’

He looks at me with pity in his eyes. ‘Crux worship light, not death, Rain. Just because I fight in a war doesn’t mean I glory in the death-toll. And the girl . . . she’s just a kid.’

I wish I had something scathing to say about that but I don’t because I’m vomiting again, with Steen holding long hair out of my face.

‘As for you,’ he says wryly, ‘isn’t it obvious I would die for you?’

S
oldiers come. There are medics and Scrutiners. Hospital tents and heat lamps. Lights to keep a new night at bay. Eventually Zoya finds me and bundles me in a hug, along with the billowing silver therma-wrap I’m wearing to fend off hypothermia.

‘Pip, you lunatic, I thought I’d lost you! Our trucks got over long before the bombs, so we’re all fine. Are you going to eat that food bar, because if not . . . ? Thanks. So. Are you OK now? You’re shivering.’

Damn right I’m shivering. My head is full of visions of death for each of the three medics who’ve laid hands on me since Steen dragged me to safety. I saw one medic get shot by friendly fire; one wastes away from an old-age disease. The third one, a female, I sense is growing a baby, which will live far longer than its mother.

Enough, enough! I don’t want to know these futures! I don’t want this torrent of life and death! I shrink away from Zoya too. My best comfort is having one hand in my pocket to stroke the quivering ball of feathers nesting there. My bird. I’m amazed Eye Bright survived the river.

When all clothes are dry and all reports completed I meet the rest of the ground crew to continue our Strategic Withdrawal east. We’re jammed into yet another truck – I notice it’s got a flattened wild rablet stuck dead on one tyre. Zoya squashes between Yeldon and Haze, leaving me the only free space, next to Mossie, who tells me she’s so happy I’m safe, then promptly falls asleep on my shoulder.

We’re dumped at a set of monumental gates at the edge of an industrial estate somewhere west of Sea-Ways. A screen that’s dying for lack of power streams a sign:
People’s Number 41 Biopolis
. Beyond the gates great bio-vats march across the horizon, blocking the sun. These are the towers where bio-fibres are woven, ready to be formed into whatever the Nation needs. Now they’re as empty as the other factory buildings. The workers have had their own Strategic Withdrawal, to sites on the east side of the city, where it’s safer.

This, then, is the home of the new Storm squadron. The planes are under camouflaged nets along one side of a long strip of patchy bioground.

‘It doesn’t look like an airbase,’ Zoya says doubtfully. She connects for reassurance from Aura. ‘Oh no! Check your updates, Rain. We’ve got to report to Marina Furey. I bet she’s still mad at you for taking the Storm . . .’

Aura directs us to the new HQ. Before we can even knock to enter, an office door is yanked open and Marina Furey stands there looking magnificent and terrifying, with hands on hips and a half-opened packet of chokes sprouting out of a pocket. We haven’t seen her since we set off for Sorrowdale that last, illegal time.

‘Do you two have
any idea
how much trouble you’re in?’ she bawls. Her anger echoes round the Biopolis and lasts until she runs out of energy, then she rubs her eyes, gives one final lament about insubordination from one of her most promising pilots, and tells us to clear out.

‘Go and get something to eat. Get a bath too. You look filthy.’

Did she mean what she just said? Did Marina Furey, the world’s greatest aviator, call me
one of her most promising pilots
 . . . ?

‘We’re free to join the squadron again?’ I ask.

‘Yes, Aranoza. You’re more valuable to us as a pilot than a prisoner,
not
that this means any more abnormal behaviour will be tolerated in the slightest.’ Her expression softens. ‘You were wrong to take the Storm to Sorrowdale, but under the circumstances all charges have been dropped. It was the least I could arrange after what you did for Henke and Rill . . . and for me.’

I glance at Zoya –
What does she mean?
Zoya looks just as confused.

Furey snaps her fingers for the nearest stream-screen to power on. She scrolls through some images until one face fills the screen.

‘That’s the girl on the bridge,’ I gasp. ‘She’s not wet in that picture,’ I add lamely.

‘No,’ says Furey, with a bit of a sniff, ‘she’s not wet any more. She’s one of the evacuees from People’s Number Twelve Young School in Sorrowdale. Her name is Tilly Furey and she’s my daughter – the only family I have left in the world.’

I’m dizzy-glad that happiness came out of the horror of River Seaward. My heart would be a lot lighter if I knew that Reef was doing OK, but that’s Scrutiner business and Aura won’t let me access updates about him. Of course, he could message me himself. But he doesn’t.

Once we’re ejected from Furey’s office Zoya declares she’s famished. She heads off to see if there’s hot food.

‘Everyone will be in the canteen,’ she says. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

‘In a bit. I need to get some clean gear on. Scrub up a bit.’

‘OK. Don’t be long – everyone will wonder where you are.’

I want to wash any lingering traces of the river away and I get Aura to direct me to the Biopolis bath-house.

It’s an Old Nation building that’s been modernised with decent plumbing and hopefully hot water. Apparently there are sweat-rooms, dry-heat rooms and a cold plunge-pool. The first two sound wonderful, but when I get to the bath-house they don’t seem to be open for business. The changing-rooms are empty, with just one forgotten sock in the corner.

I figure I can at least shower. I undress quickly. It’s silly to keep looking over my shoulder as if someone’s watching me, but I do anyway. Taking care not to disturb Eye Bright, who is a ball of sleeping fluff, I fold my clothes, grab a towel – grey and scratchy as if it’s been murdered in the laundry, rather than washed – then tiptoe into a shower cubicle. The floor is cold. I say, ‘
Shower on
.’ Nothing happens. Again, sharper: ‘
Shower on!
’ The nozzle leaks water like a runny nose. Cold water. Nothing to do but pull the towel tight and nip to the next cubicle. ‘
Shower on.
’

Not even a dribble.

Showers, sauna, steam-room – all cold. I try the sinks outside the row of toilet cubicles. Joy. One tap spits out enough water to fill a basin before choking dry. I drop my towel round my waist and manage a rough strip wash, wetting my hair and soaping that too. Maybe I should cut it off after all. It tingles from where Steen grabbed it to haul me out of the water. I still can’t believe he did that. Why would he? He said he’d die for me. How idiotic.

There’s a mirror over each sink. In mine I see a stark reflection. A girl who keeps surviving catastrophes.

I look normal enough. Uncomfortable, obviously. It’s funny being more or less naked in the open like this. I seem healthy enough – I always have been, until the recent bouts of sickness. Maybe my body needs a bit more padding. Bigger breasts? Will I grow taller? What will I look like as I get older? What would Reef think if he could see me now? Na! That makes me shiver! I imagine his eyes on me . . . My skin tightens. Nipples go hard.

Colder water required.

Even when it’s been scrubbed clean my skin still feels wrong. Stretched too tight. Itchy. Is it my face? I get one of those moments when you stare at your reflection and it’s like looking at somebody else’s face through a pane of glass. You wait for the other face to do or say something. You frown. It frowns. You blink. It blinks.

When I open my eyes the light behind me is flickering,
on-on-off, on-on-off
. Not the sort of power glitch you expect in Rodina.

‘Is anybody there?’

Silence except for the sound of invisible water trickling. If I had fur my hackles would rise.

On-on-off
goes the light.

I look in the mirror again. For a flash moment there’s no reflection – I don’t exist. Then there’s my face again in the sink water – an oval of fear framed by black hair.

A single droplet rolls from the tap into the sink. It falls without a splash into the basin. A second drop goes the same way. A third drop is as red as blood. It blossoms in the sink and spreads, making a grim sunset on a pale horizon. Dark shapes appear against the red – a phalanx of planes in formation. Bombs scatter down, fires flare up. Then I see a shape in the flames – a burning god-house and a girl with lightning for hair . . .

Enough!

On-on-off.
The light reminds me where I am. I plunge my hand into the water. The pictures swirl into soapy grey and are gone.

Off.

All the lights go off.

Utter darkness. Not a glimmer.

‘Who’s there?’

I don’t need to ask. I can actually see in the dark, not just the light shapes and shadows of normal night-vision, but as clear as if all the lights are on. They’re not – I check, and they’re dead.

Haze keeps her distance. She’s afraid. Of me? Of being without light, most likely. She twists the end of her embroidered belt nervously. If there were lights, what would she see looking in a mirror now – her face or mine? She shuffles in the dark, approaching me around the walls.

‘I know you’re there,’ she whispers. ‘You’re hiding.’

‘I’m not hiding. There’s a power outage or something. The lights will be back on again in a moment.’

‘You hide in the light too. You lie and steal. Thief!’

‘Hey – you can’t go around saying things like that!’

‘Can,’ she says stubbornly.

‘It’s you, isn’t it, who’s been leaving those disgusting charm things on my Storm and in my jacket? I know you probably think they’re for protection or something, but I don’t believe in witches, so I don’t need charms against them.’

‘No.’ She gives a funny laugh. ‘You don’t need charms against them.’

‘So you won’t leave any more around?’

‘You can’t tell me what to do! I’m not your servant! I’m nobody’s servant now!’

Her anger makes me flinch. ‘No, I can’t tell you what to do, but I could tell the Scrutiners about you and your superstitions.’

She draws back. ‘
Eyes in the Dark
are nasty.’

‘Exactly. So keep away from me, or I’ll tell them everything.’

‘Everything?’ Her voice takes on a cunning tone. ‘All
your
secrets too?’

‘I don’t have any secrets . . .’

‘Lies, lies,
lies
! I want it back, you know, all of it.’

‘All of
what
?’

‘My life. My family. Everything you stole.’

‘Honestly, Haze, you’re mistaking me for someone I’m not.’

‘No.’ She’s almost crying. ‘No –
you’re
mistaking yourself for someone you’re not!’

She runs out of the bath-house.

The lights flash on all at once – too bright! I slide my hand into the sink and pull the plug. Water gurgles down the pipes, leaving the sink spidered with a few long, black hairs.