Night Witches (18 page)

‘
R
eef?’

‘Rain?’ His face lights up with hope, but there’s no light in his eyes. That’s when I know for sure. Reef is night-blind. His lo-glo lamp is too feeble to shine into the vat’s furthest corners. Steen’s fingers grip my arm. I prise them off.

‘In here! I’m coming!’

Let Steen go running back to all the other god-rotten Crux. I don’t want him around me. Don’t want proof of what I’ve done.

Reef is shaking when I reach his side. He’s covered in strands of burned bio-weave and blinking away shock. He wraps an arm around my shoulders. ‘Come with me,’ he says hoarsely. ‘Let me take you home.’

Home? This city under siege can’t be Sea-Ways, surely?

I don’t recognise my own home town. Traption trenches circle the suburbs, crested with repellent spikes. High walls bristle with anti-aircraft guns, watchtowers and troops. Soldiers defending the walls aren’t the smart heroes we saw marching through the streets all those for evers ago when we first left for Loren Airbase. These are civilians shoved into any old pieces of uniform and handed whatever weapons Glissom’s gun factory can produce. There are old men patrolling the barricades; old women on sharp-eyed sentinel duty.

All windows are stained with blackout paint. Blast-bags are built up around doorways.
Sold Out
signs are pasted across every shop front. Swathed in drab camouflage nets, salvaged Storms line a school sports field. Reef leads me into an infant classroom painted with the gaudy colours of peacetime.

It’s a subdued reunion. My friends are safe, but there were other fatalities at the Biopolis – more people I never knew, and now I’ll never know. Perhaps someone, somewhere, mourns the Scrutiner Roke.

Zoya comes to squash up next to me. It’s no use trying to sit on the infant chairs – our knees come up to our chins – so we perch on the tables instead.

Zoya’s face is grey. ‘How many lives have you got, Pip? We thought you were dead. Haze too.’

‘Haze is alive?’

‘Reef found her – sent her here. What happened?’

I shake my head. I can’t think about it, let alone talk.

The classroom door bangs open and Marina Furey strides in, promptly knocking her head on a kid’s arty mobile hanging from the low ceiling.

‘Brilliant.’ She scowls. ‘Why do I suddenly feel like I’m a teacher barging in to break up playtime? Of all the places I’ve been based, this really is the . . . Hey – is that a sandpit? Tilly will love that . . .’

The door slams open again. This time it’s Fenlon. His overalls must’ve been cut off him during emergency treatment for his injured leg, and now the only top that’ll fit his frame is a big teacher’s tunic with
Hello Children I’m Here To Help
emblazoned across the chest. He limps into the classroom and makes a big show of stowing his walking sticks. We can’t help laughing.

Furey holds up her hand to calm us.

‘Fun’s over. You’d have to be blind not to notice there’s nothing much to laugh about now. Comms are patchy; reports are more like rumours. One thing’s obvious. Sea-Ways is under siege. Hush! There’ll be time one day to ask how this could happen. Let’s just count ourselves lucky we got away as lightly as we did.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Fenlon growls.

‘Lives were lost from our squadron, and I regret this more than anyone. Thanks to Ang’s excellent shooting, and quick responses from all of you, more lives were saved than lost and we’ve salvaged all of the Storms. Now the real fight begins. Some of you have been with me from the first. Some of you are new . . .’

She looks over all the newbies, who sit up a bit straighter, despite the childish surroundings.

‘For the newest recruits, this siege signals the end of your training. For you the examination will begin in the middle of the battle. You will not fly in awesome machines and, to be frank, you aren’t excessively awesome in appearance. However, desperate days are upon us and the Long Night draws near.’

‘You’re right about desperate,’ mutters Fenlon.

Furey turns on him. ‘
Yes
, desperate! Do you think I’m not torn up inside, worrying what’s going to happen to my daughter and all the other evacuees now sheltering in this very school? Do you think I don’t know the Crux have siege weapons that can flatten this city before they convert us at gunpoint? Does that mean we just roll over and give up?’

Fenlon looks alarmed. ‘Over my dead body!’

Furey’s brow rises in appreciation of this thought.

Zoya nudges me, murmuring, ‘She likes him.’

Furey swipes the art mobile out of her way and paces across the classroom.

‘I bet you’ve all thought in secret,
What can I do in this war, against so dreadful an enemy? What use will my effort be
–
I’m only one person?
My reply is this – you are One of Many.’

‘One of Many!
’ our response ripples.

‘You, Ang – you’re the best shot on the squadron. Lida, you’ve the gift of knowing how to get a team working. Zoya, Dee, Petra . . . all of you are dedicated and talented. Rain . . .’

I shake my head.
Don’t look at me!

‘Rain, you fly like you were born to it. I’m counting on you,
all of you
, to pull together now. Every supply dump wrecked, every siege engine crippled, every traption disabled, every unit of creepers kept on edge by the drone of our engines,
every
mission you fly in the Storms contributes to the downfall of our enemy. One of you alone cannot win this war. Many of us together
will
win, if we stay strong and loyal. Sea-Ways City must not,
will not
be conquered. At whatever cost, we and our Storms will protect it.’

First they jeer, civilians seeing us trundling along the sports field in our funny wooden planes. They think we’ll be toys against the great siege machines circling the city. They don’t see us gliding between searchlight beams to drop our bombs. They can’t count Crux casualties as we fire down on enemy encampments.

Then the rumours start to spread. It’s Storms that safeguard the only remaining railway into Sea-Ways. It’s Storms swarming like stab-tails for air battles above the suburbs. It’s Storms that send enemy planes crashing down in flames.

Mama messages
have you heard about them, these storms? all night they’re flying, even though it’s dark, can you believe it? last night i was awake and worrying about where you were, and down it came, this plane, right past my window, waggling its wings . . .

I smile. That was me, of course!

I was going to buzz Zoya’s apartment too but she said no way, her father would be furious if she did anything so frivolous.

‘You mean you told Uncle Mentira you’re with the squadron? We’re not supposed to let our families know what sort of war work we’re doing.’

‘Aura said it was OK.’

‘The rest of us aren’t allowed to.’

Zoya shrugs. ‘He’s a scientist. He needs to know things. Don’t bug me about it, I’m tired. Eighteen times we went out last night, fifteen the night before. I could sleep right through the Long Night when it happens – how come
you’re
always so full of energy?’

I can’t answer that. I feel like a bag of chaos inside. I’m sloshing with sensations . . . the sweaty constriction of my flying helmet on hot nights, the scent of tiny white flowers pushing up through fine cracks in bio-fibre floors, the taste of bile in my mouth whenever we have to fly over the river running through the city.

The best and worst day comes when an unusual ac-req arrives through for the squadron.

‘I don’t believe it!’ Lida is too angry to sit down and take the news nicely. ‘They want us to risk our necks spraying
weedkiller
?’

‘If I had two necks I’d risk them for the Nation,’ says Ang stubbornly.

‘
I’d
risk both your necks as well,’ replies Lida. ‘It’s
mine
I’m worried about. Honestly, sending us off on a daylight mission to go Slick-spreading when we’ve only just got back from night-bombing! Hasn’t Aura analysed the weather out there? You can’t see the end of your nose visibility’s so poor.’

Dee goes cross-eyed trying to test if it’s ever possible to see the end of your nose.

It’s hard to know what Aura can and can’t see these days. When I connect for ac-reqs I often get nothing but a monotonous
please wait please wait please wait
.

Today a thick sea-mist has crawled up from the low-lying harbour. It smells of salty bones and fish eyes. It creeps through our warmest flying clothes, leaving us clammy and cold despite the summer season.

At the centre of the runway Yeldon stands tall with luminous batons to guide the Storms into position.

‘At least we can’t see how bad things are when it’s like this,’ says Zoya, as we wait for our turn to take off, wings weighted with cans of Slick. ‘I hate looking down at all the Crux bomb-slingers and siege engines and traptions crusting the city edges, just waiting for a chance to come and trample us.’ There’s a crackle over the comms, then she says, ‘Pip . . . we
are
going to stop them, aren’t we? We are going to win the war?’

I can’t lie. ‘Not with Slick we’re not.’

‘My father says we have to do whatever we can to win the war.’

‘And we both know your father is always right!’

I laugh, but Zoya doesn’t laugh back.

‘It’s tricky to spot any landmarks,’ she calls once we’re over the city centre. ‘Everything’s so grey, just a few dim lights. Isn’t that the big screen in the station square? That could be our school roof there. I think we’re in position. Shall I start spraying?’

No! Leave the weeds alone! Let the grass grow, let the saplings shoot up, let the flowers blossom! I hate the thought of all that black poison raining down, spattering on rogue leaves and sliding down green stems
.

To Zoya I say, ‘Sure. Do it.’

I think I can hear people down on the streets putting up umbrellas as we sweep past. Why are we wasting time with this? Who is the greater enemy, the Crux and their killing machines, or the Morass with its mazy ways? Loyalty is such a funny thing. You think you know whose side you’re on, who’s on your side, and then . . .

‘Pip!’ Zoya screams as the plane jolts. ‘Enemy aircraft!’

I snap back into focus and take control. ‘Screamers? Catapults?’

‘Unknown. I think we’re hit!’

Dreaming in the mist I never heard anything approach. I take us up to break the mist and hope the other Storms have spotted the enemy too. The moment we emerge into morning sunshine sounds are sharper.

‘Behind us, Pip!’ Zoya swings her Glissom rapid-fire round to shoot at the Crux Catapult planes that have been waiting for us to appear out of the mist, like wolves watching a rablet hole.

Whatever I do to shake them off, however I turn, there’s a shower of Slick following behind, some blown back in our faces so we’re smeared in the disgusting stuff. The sun’s eye is harsh and I wish I’d remembered my flying visor.

Zoya shouts, ‘Drop altitude – hide in the mist again!’

Down we go, swooping low over long lamp-poles and rooftop washing lines, still trickling Slick from the under-wing canisters. A woman pegging things out to dry shakes her fist at us. She should be glad she won’t have flowers budding in her blankets, though I think that would be rather lovely, sleeping with blossoms . . .

It takes all my concentration to dodge tall buildings while still keeping out of range of the Catapult. Finally I find River Seaward. I follow its sludge-green ribbon for a while. That brings up bad memories of tumbling into the water with Tilly . . . and being hauled out by Steen. I wonder where he is.

‘Zoya – can you hear me?’ My own ears feel full of mist and Slick.

‘I’m right behind you – what’s the plan?’

‘We have to get the Catapults away from the city.’

‘You mean out over the harbour?’

My stomach flips at the thought of the churning ocean. ‘Definitely.’

‘That might work . . . especially as they’re right on our tail again now –
Pip
!’

I pull the nose up and whip around sharply before turning towards the coast again. There are the harbour lights . . . the Catapults are too close!

‘I can’t lose them!’

‘I can’t hit them!’

A stutter of bullets shreds into the Storm. Wires ping and the plane begins to dance. I don’t have control. More bullets. Zoya yelps. I twist round. She’s disappeared from sight.

N
o, no, no!

Sea-mist and shock cling to my body, slowing me down, just when I should be doing something dynamic. Why am I so sluggish anywhere over rivers and sea? The Storm twists and plunges like a twig on floodwater. Is this it? Is this how it ends – I die alone?

Not alone. Dee’s Storm comes powering up, right on the tail of the Crux planes. Predators become prey. Ang shoots one Catapult right in the fuel tanks so it explodes in mid-air, creating a second sun. The other is almost out of range when she scores a direct hit on the pilot, sending that plane tumbling down into the mist.

I fall after it, dazed by my own uselessness. The plane just isn’t responding. Wires must’ve been jammed or shot to pieces, because I don’t have control. Without wires, what can I do? I keep jabbing the rudder pedal with my boot, as if that’ll help . . . and, amazingly, something unsnarls. The wires run smoothly and the Storm responds to my touch again.

The sea doesn’t catch me with its white-flecked wave-tips. I’m not swallowed in nasty salt billows.

I hear a groan. Behind me a blood-grazed hand appears on the edge of the cockpit, followed by a thatch of pale hair and a scowl.

‘No floor left!’ Zoya shouts. ‘I’m sitting on sky!’

I want to whoop with delight!

‘You owe Fenlon a huge thanks for that extra-strong seat and harness belt.’

‘I owe you thanks for the boot-wetting. I thought we were going under then.’

‘So did I! Can you hang on till we reach the base?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

I laugh, feeling suddenly light enough to fly without a plane. ‘We won’t need landing gear – you can start running when we touch down . . .’

‘Don’t joke, that might actually happen. Listen, Pip, thank you for not letting us die.’

‘Thank Ang. Her shooting was inspired.’

‘No, I mean it. It’s true what everybody says. You really are loyal, aren’t you?’

I tense. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘It’s just . . . There’s something I shouldn’t tell you . . .’ Zoya’s voice is strained, probably from the effort of hanging on to her harness.

‘Can’t it wait?’ I’m squinting through curtains of gauzy mist.

‘Yes, kind of, but not for long. It’s about—’

‘No, really, it’ll have to wait – more Crux incoming!’

Soon the sky is specked with planes. I zip between them as best I can. Zoya hoists herself up to the cockpit edge but she can’t hold on and shoot at the same time. Once again, Ang saves the day, eventually escorting us back to base before returning to patrol the skies.

Fenlon himself hauls Zoya free from the floorless navigator’s seat. His way of congratulating her on surviving is to slap her on the back so hard she stumbles and would fall if Yeldon weren’t there to catch her in a pretty hearty hug.

I start shaking. Delayed reaction, I guess. Someone hands me a towel. It’s soon black with the Slick I’ve scrubbed from my face and hands.

I’ve long since scrubbed Steen from my lips. Reef’s not so easy to slough off. He’s busy with some Scrutiner business the day of the near-disastrous air-duel over Sea-Ways. Increasingly we get glitches with Aura connections – the Morass effect? – but he still finds time to message me.

rain, how are you today?

rain, i miss you

rain, are you avoiding me?

Avoiding him? Absolutely.

Other people are counting the days – not many now – till the Eclipse. I’m counting off each day I don’t have to face Reef. Everything’s so crazy I get away with it for ages until, trudging down a school corridor after another night in the sky, I quite literally bump into him.

‘Rain! Finally! I’ve been looking for you.’

What have I done now?

‘Here, come into this classroom. We need to talk.’ He shuts the door behind us. ‘I’ve just been sending updates to Aura. People in Corona are really sitting up and taking notice of the squadron. They’re so impressed with the Storms’ successes defending Sea-Ways that they’re going to include one of the planes in the big Festival of Light parade in the capital. Guess what else the updates said . . . ?’

Bang bang bang
– my heartbeat is loud but my voice is small. ‘I’m in trouble because Steen escaped?’

‘Forget Steen. With any luck he’ll have been killed or injured trying to get back to his own lines, or he’ll fall in some forest rift and get eaten by trees. I’m glad he’s gone – I was sick of babysitting him. These updates were about
you
.’

‘Am I in trouble about something else?’

Reef laughs. ‘Relax! Trust me, all the reports were positive. Why wouldn’t they be? You’re an amazing pilot, a good team-player and a loyal citizen. Obviously there were observations I withheld from the reports . . .’ I cringe. Here it comes – the denunciation. ‘. . . like how your eyes light up when you smile – which you don’t do half often enough. How you twirl that bit of hair over your ear when you’re thinking. How you stretch when you get out of your Storm, as if you’re bridging the gap between sky and ground.’

How does he do that? Make my heart stop beating by saying something so sincere?

He looks straight into my eyes and I feel silvery threads drawing us close. I wish I could trust him. Wish I could waft off to the forest with him to sink into summer among the trees, with dawn cobwebs, heavy flowers, fat green leaves and the shiver of lace-wing insects . . .

He pulls me closer. I feel all his body along the length of mine. I put my hands on his chest as if to push him away, even though I’d far rather trust the instinct to let him wind himself around me, like two thorn-vine shoots twisting together.

‘You can’t do this . . .’ I whisper.

‘I know.’ His voice is hoarse.

‘You’re a Scrutiner . . .’

‘Do you think I ever forget it?’ His eyes darken. ‘I sacrificed a lot to do this job. I’ve always done the right thing, even when . . . even when the right thing seemed horribly wrong.’

He won’t look at me now.

‘Your parents?’ I ask quietly.

‘You know?’

‘A bit. Not the whole story.’

He straightens up and smooths his uniform. Now his voice his hard. ‘I only did what was right. They were Lim-born. They believed in witches – worshipped them even. They went out in the woods for days and nights, dancing, drinking, whatever people do in the forest, leaving me alone with only Aura to keep me company. They’d bring back branches full of leaves to put in the house, garlands of blossom and fans of corvil feathers. They sang songs of . . . I don’t want to remember. Then one day Aura asked where they’d gone. I told the truth. I never saw my parents again.’

‘Do you feel guilty?’

‘What do you think? How can I not!’ He folds his arms around his body and stares at an invisible spot on the wall. ‘But I was only a kid, doing what everyone said was my duty. They praised me for it. Took me away for training. Taught me how to spot signs of superstitious thinking. Aura’s laboratories were my home. I told you already I knew your Uncle Mentira. It was his idea to send me to the Morass as part of the normalisation team. He said it would do me good to control the place that had made my parents so wild . . .’

‘And did it?’ I can’t forget the way he so casually shot the wolf watching me on the edge of the forest rift . . . or how he couldn’t bring himself to kill the wolf prowling around the Biopolis airbase.

He shakes his head. ‘Yes . . . and no. It grows on you, the forest. Literally, these days.’ He stops to pull up a small seedling that’s dared to root in the wall of the classroom and twirls it between his fingers. ‘Sorry, this must all sound pretty bad to you. I just wanted to explain, and there hasn’t been a chance.’

I like his honesty . . . if that’s what it is. His eyes search mine now, looking for acceptance, or accusation, or something else only Scrutiners know about . . .

I can’t look away.

‘Thank you for listening,’ he murmurs. ‘It’s a tough secret to keep.’

‘I won’t tell anyone.’

‘I know. And I want you to know you can talk to me in confidence any time you need.’

‘Because you’re a Scrutiner?’

‘Because I want us to be friends, Rain. More than friends, whether that’s right or wrong.’

‘But you always do what’s right. Like at the bridge – you followed Aura’s orders to save the Slick when you wanted to save the evacuees.’

Reef stares at me. ‘You don’t pull your punches, do you? Just between us, maybe I was wrong at the bridge. My motto has long been
don’t step off the path
, but here I am starting to think that sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself. Like now.’

He leans in and dips his head to do a wonderful, terrible thing.

He kisses me.

How sweet it is, oh god, how utterly
wanted
his lips are. This is so different from the clinch with Steen, as different as light from dark. I could drink kisses like this for ever and still not have enough. I love it. I love him.

And every moment of the kiss adds to a private agony as I get a clearer, stronger vision of his death.

His breath quickens. His arms tighten. I’m trembling –no, shaking – no,
shattering
to pieces in my desperation to get away. I tear myself from him, feeling every rip in the intimacy as a physical pain.

‘Rain . . . ? What’s the matter? What did I do?’

I’m choked. Can’t speak. Can’t find the words to describe the horrific inner sight of a hand slicing a cold blade right across Reef’s warm throat.

I’m already backed to the far end of the corridor when I hear Cousin Zoya asking Reef, ‘Was that Pip? I need to speak to her. Where’s she going?’

‘Let me go,’ I tell Reef. ‘Leave me alone!’

That goes for Zoya too. Whatever she’s got to say it’ll have to wait. She’s been hovering at my shoulder for a couple of days now, looking like she’s about to speak, then saying, ‘
Nope, nothing’s up
.’

Where to run to now? Where to hide? The canteen is buzzing with people, though it doesn’t stink of herbs and Haze as usual. The hangar is full of tired techs patching up Storms. In the crew-room there’s no peace either. Since no one wants to think about the upcoming Eclipse, it’s all talk of the siege, of supplies running low, of what we’ll do if the worst happens and the Crux break through.

‘We’ll keep fighting in the streets,’ Lida is saying. ‘We’ll make them pay for every city block they steal from us. We’ll
die
rather than surrender or convert to their yash religion.’

Dee says, ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘Hey, Rain, what’s up? Are you OK? You look a bit sick . . .’ Mossie waves at me as I hover in the doorway.

I
am
sick. Sick of bombs, of blood, of war – all of it. Why won’t someone make it all
go away
? I want my mama. I want to go home.

I dodge out of the school, split across the edge of the sports field runway and start sprinting through Sea-Way’s streets. I need no ac-reqs from Aura to find my route, even through road-blocks and refugees.

I’m vaguely aware of people around me. Some are lined up at ration centres to get their daily dose of food packets. Some are hurrying to work in shabby uniforms. Some are stringing up party lamps. These will be for the Festival of Light that’s planned to cheer the final day – is it only one more day? – before the Eclipse begins. They’ll keep shining all through the Long Night so no one has to be afraid of the dark . . . Or will Aura give orders for total blackout?

Slick-licked plant-life is being pulled from cracks in roads and walls, then loaded on to barrows to be burned in one of the many bonfires along the banks of River Seaward. There are other fires . . . for cremating bodies.

Here’s the park, now a tent city for homeless foodlanders. Here’s my street, complete with signs and arrows for the new underground bomb shelter. Here I am, at the entrance to People’s Number 2032 Housing Block . . . at the top of ten flights of stairs, at the door to my apartment . . . standing in the doorway with eyes wide and mouth open.

Mama’s home. She’s not yet left for her shift at Glissom’s. There she is, next to a plate of half-eaten breakfast. She’s got her arms round a black-haired girl and both of them are crying.