Night Witches (19 page)

‘
H
aze?’ The name sticks in my throat. ‘Mama?’

This is the scene I saw in the bath-house basin of water. This is Haze’s fortune.

‘Rain? I didn’t know you’d be here . . .’ Mama loosens her hold on Haze and rubs tears from her eyes. ‘Don’t look like that! Come in, shut the door, sit down, quick. It’s a shock, I know.’

The lights are so bright! What is Haze doing in my home? What is she doing
anywhere
in my world? I wish I could slam her so hard against the wall it dents.

Haze moves so the table is between us. Her eyes are darting everywhere, looking for a way of escape. Stupid lump, she starts to cry again.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ she gulps. ‘It’s not my fault. I just wanted to get away from the forest and find my mama. I just want everything that’s mine.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Were three words ever so completely inadequate to sum up my confusion?

‘Oh, Rain . . .’ Mama looks sad for me, but she doesn’t come any closer to give me a hug. Then she frowns. ‘Is that really your name?’

‘It’s
my
name,’ Haze tells me, ‘but I don’t want it back; you can keep it. Keep your friends and your clothes and your flying. I just want my family. My life.’

I find my voice again. ‘Whatever she’s told you, it’s lies, Mama. She’s been making trouble for me ever since we met. She’s mean, she’s crazy.’

‘And
she’s
an impostor,’ whines Haze.

Mama shakes her head. ‘I never thought . . . I mean, we did
wonder
, your papi and I, but we never said anything. It was just a feeling, you know, when you sense something’s wrong for no obvious reason. My baby was missing, and then you were found. Why wouldn’t I think it was you?’ She turns to Haze. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve known there’d been a mistake. But she looked like my baby – how could she not be real?’

‘I am real!’ I shout. ‘Mama, I’m standing right here in front of you! Look at me – it’s
me
. Rain. Your daughter!’

‘What’s all the racket?’ comes a familiar voice from the doorway. Right on cue, Pedla Rue, scuttling across the hallway to stick her nose in. She’s got a can with a long spout that drips Slick, perfect for squirting into nooks where plant-life nestles. ‘Well now, look who’s home . . . Rain!’

‘See – Pedla,
you
know me, don’t you? Tell her! Tell Mama who I am.’

Pedla stops short. She squints at me, then Haze.

‘All right, I give up. What’s going on?’

‘There was a storm,’ Mama whispers. ‘Last Long Night, all those years ago. We lost power and had to light candles. My baby wouldn’t stop crying and crying. I was so cold, so tired . . . I only put her down for a moment, I swear. I went to the kitchen to make a hot drink. The candles blew out. I had to feel everything in the dark – it was horrible! When I got back to the bedroom the window was open and the cot was empty; there was just my baby’s blanket inside, all crumpled up. I didn’t know what to do! This was before Aura and connecting. I screamed for your papi and we ran out into the village.’

‘Sorrowdale,’ I say in a dull voice.

‘That’s right – how did you know that?’

I close my eyes and think back to that sombre morning walk in the ruins of Sorrowdale, now grown to town-size. Now destroyed by war. ‘I remember bits.’

‘You couldn’t remember the storm, you were too young—’

‘And it wasn’t you,’ interrupts Haze. ‘
I
was the baby that was stolen. People should’ve run to the god-house to ring bells as soon as the storm started. They should’ve known witches would come!’

Pedla hisses through her teeth. ‘
Witches
took you? I’m always telling people to watch out for witches! We just aren’t protected any more. That’s what comes of rooting up feybane bushes and taking down the god-house bells. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?’

Haze nods. ‘I learned the story from the old woman who slaved me. She said my mother ran to the god-house to ask where I was, but god was gone too, so my mother sat on the edge of god’s garden where the dead are buried.’

‘Then I found you again,’ Mama sobs. ‘There you were on a bed of feathers. I took you home, Rain.’

So those visions back at Sorrowdale, and in the wreckage of the Biopolis, they weren’t just hallucinations. They were memories of the time I was found. The day baby Haze was stolen.

Mama says, ‘I was so, so careful after that. I swore I’d never let anything else happen to my baby. I told you all the rules so you’d be good, so the witches wouldn’t steal you again. Then Aura said none of the Old Nation stories were true, that there were no such things as witches. We came to Sea-Ways to start over. I honestly didn’t know what had really happened that Long Night, until Haze came here today . . .’ She breaks into full-blown weeping. ‘We loved you, truly we did, sweeting. We didn’t know you weren’t normal. You looked like my baby, you cried like my baby, but . . .’

I’ve had enough. ‘Shut up going on about it! It’s all just insane! What if Scrutiners could hear you?’

Pedla sniffs the air as if suddenly smelling something rotten. ‘All this time I’ve been warning folk about monsters, never guessing there’d be one living right on my doorstep, as sly as you please.’

‘Oh, don’t call her a monster!’ cries Mama. ‘She can’t help what she is.’

‘Don’t call me anything!’ I howl. ‘I’m your
daughter
, Mama. You know I am. There’s no such thing as witches!’

Pedla puts down her can of Slick and fumbles in the pocket of her shabby cardigan. ‘You’ve always laughed at me for carrying these things around . . . Here, see how you like them ringing!’

I flinch as she thrusts a set of jangling bells in my face. ‘Stop it!’

Pedla shouts over the sound of the bells. ‘They don’t grow children of their own, these witches. The stories all say they steal real babies and keep them as slaves, setting false things in their place.’

‘That’s what you are,’ says Haze, pointing a shaky finger right at me. ‘You’re the abomination. The witch spawn. The changeling. It’s
you
.’

Witch. A witch. A witch . . .

I can’t get away quickly enough. The whispers follow me down all ten flights of stairs and into the street. The rumours grow, and a crowd grows too. Pedla must be messaging ahead to warn neighbours where I am. I walk, eyes down, thinking,
Don’t look at me don’t look at me don’t see me i’m not here . . .

Someone points.

‘Is that her?’

‘She’s the one,’ says another.

Fingers are busy on keypads. The word spreads.

I walk on, faster now, no idea where I’m going, no idea what to do, thinking,
Normal, normal – I’m normal!

A man shouts. ‘Hey you, stop!’

I don’t look back. I start to jog, nipping through a shopping centre full of empty stores then down the middle of the street to where floats for the upcoming Festival parade are parked. Someone grabs at my arm. I dodge round a float with a cobbled-together tableau of soldier statues that will be illuminated as Umbra rises. I skid along an alley full of uncollected garbage. When I begin to run, men start chasing. My only clear route is across a main street to one of the Old Nation stone bridges that still span this section of River Seaward. Pedla Rue always said if witches were coming for you, ring your bells and get to the river – witches hate running water. Here’s an unexpected twist on her words. I’m running away from the bells.

‘There she is!’

The shout acts like a magnet to the crowd. Everyone swings round to look in my direction. Afraid of being crushed by the mass of people approaching in all directions I jump up on the bridge parapet. My stomach churns as much as the river below. I wrap my arms around a lamppost strung with Festival lights.

How can everything be unravelling so badly? Aura – tell me what to do! The only message I get when I connect is
welcome rain aranoza, location sea-ways city, grid ref 102:2929 – status update, please wait, please wait, please wait

‘Doesn’t look like a monster,’ says a woman with her hair bound up in a turban. I’m sure she’s one of the workers from Glissom’s Gun Factory. She might even know my mama. Or the woman I thought was my mama.

‘You can’t tell just by looking,’ says another, balancing a toddler on her hip. ‘Poke her, see what she does.’

‘Oh, leave her alone,’ says the turban lady. ‘She’s in uniform and everything.’

They all babble at once.

‘She’s one of those plane pilots, the ones that go out in the dark.’

‘The dark’s not normal.’

‘Aren’t they the ones keeping the rail link to Corona free of Crux? I’ve seen one of their Storm planes. They’re made of wood.’

‘Wood’s not normal.’

‘
Night Witches
, the Crux call them, that’s what I heard.’

Witch, a witch, a witch . 
. . there go the murmurs again, like a horrid torrent of running water, coming to sweep me away.

Pedla Rue shoves her way into the middle of the crowd, all elbows and eager spite.

She cries, ‘Look at her, wild and wicked! Tricked us all, she has. Brought us all bad luck. Maybe brought the war on us . . .’

A wave of anger and fear spreads through the crowd. A few men and women start climbing on to the bridge parapet either side of me.

‘Leave me alone!’ I shout.

‘Get down from there!’ Pedla shouts back. ‘We’ll show you what we think of
monsters
like you!’

‘Is she safe?’ asks the woman with the toddler.

‘Pedla, it’s just
me
,’ I yell desperately.

‘That’s what a witch would say!’ answers Pedla triumphantly. ‘And to think I ever thought she was nice and normal! She’ll be gloating now the Eclipse is almost here. She’ll be flying round your houses, stealing babies, you wait.’

The mother with a toddler squeezes him so tightly he squeals. The crowd reacts as if
I’ve
hurt the kid. I look down at the water, wondering whether it would be worse to jump in or be torn to pieces.

Pedla’s thinking of helping me with that decision. ‘Listen, everybody – witches hate running water. Let’s push her in!’

‘I’m not your enemy! It’s the Crux you should be fighting!’

A tall man in the middle of the crowd cups his hands to yell, ‘How do we know you’re not a Crux? They can pass for normal too.’

Now the crowd really is turning into a tempest. I hear hundreds of voices clamouring . . .
Did you hear that? A spy! A Crux in the city . . . Come to kill us all, poison us, blow us to pieces . . .

Pedla stamps her feet with exasperation. ‘Forget the Crux! I’ll
prove
she’s a monster. Don’t you know the old rules about witches? Cut some of her hair and give it to me. Cut her hair I say, and burn it!’

My perch on the bridge is completely surrounded. Why won’t someone come and help me?
Be careful what you wish for
 . . . As I scan the crowd I suddenly spot the white uniform of the first-yet-last person I want to see.

Reef Starzak.

He calls for silence. The crowd obey without a murmur. Now a Scrutiner is here they look shifty, like kids caught being bad.

‘What’s happening here?’ he demands to know.

‘It’s her,’ says Pedla Rue, but not so viciously now. ‘Calls herself Rain Aranoza. She’s not normal, and we’ve caught her. That’s what’s happening.’ Reef’s eyes narrow. Pedla swallows and starts to stammer, ‘It’s the eve of the Eclipse, when witches come out. They like the darkness. They steal babies . . .’

How stupid all that sounds when one of Aura’s
Eyes in the Dark
is standing listening.

‘Let me through to her,’ he commands.

Just as he reaches the bridge Pedla’s malice bubbles over. ‘Scrutiners root out rottenness, don’t they? Arrest her then! She’s a monster!’

I wish I could fold myself as small as possible, like the pieces of paper from Old Nation days, or like the twists of prayers that hang on a Crux traption. I can’t bear it that Reef will be the one to arrest me – another denunciation notch on his belt.

Reef jumps up on to the parapet, steadies himself, then edges towards me.

‘Found you,’ he says quietly.

‘I . . .’

He puts his finger to his lips then turns to speak to the crowd.

‘I’ll tell you what this girl is. She’s a member of an elite squadron of night-flyers – the very ones who’ve sacrificed their time, and in some cases their lives, to protect all you city people. Haven’t you seen the Storms in the skies over Sea-Ways? Haven’t you heard them fight to keep you free? Rain Aranoza is a pilot with Marina Furey’s Storm squadron . . . the best of all the pilots, as it happens. In recognition of her immense skills and bravery Aura has seen fit to award her the highest accolade our Nation can give.’

What?

In front of all the people, in front of a flabbergasted Pedla Rue, Reef takes my hand – and there’s no jolt now I already know how he’ll die – and he lifts it up as a sign of victory.

‘I came here to announce . . . Rain Aranoza is to be made a Hero of Rodina Nation!’