The Memory Keepers (30 page)

91

The crowd gasped as one. Well, all except
for
one.
The
one. Seven, standing there in the middle of the ball-goers, staring with them all at his ugly mug splashed across the screen, could only let out a half-hearted, ‘Effing hell.’

Alba reached back for his hand as whispers filled the air.

‘He’s that memory-thief, isn’t he?’

‘The one from the London Guard News Net broadcast?’

‘His name was something like Eight. Or Six  … ’

Then, a louder voice, cutting over them all –

‘Look! He’s here!’

Alba squeezed Seven’s hand so hard he could feel her fingernails digging into his skin. Faces were turning their way. With a rising panic, he stumbled back into someone who pushed him roughly away. A space opened in the crowd around him and Alba.

‘Come with me,’ said a kind voice.

Kola had come down from the stage. He curled an arm round Seven and, Alba in tow, led him to the front of the crowd. They climbed up to join Sung.

Sung gave him a quick, tense smile before taking his hand and pulling him forward.

‘This boy’, he announced to the crowds, ‘is Candidate Seven. Due to operations on his brain when he was a baby, Candidate Seven is able to manipulate the physical properties of memories – just like all the Candidates involved in TMK’s experiments. All of the Candidates, that is, who don’t die from the operations forced upon them by these men standing behind us.’

‘Lies!’ hissed Pearson, who had managed to free his mouth from the hand of the Movement member restraining him. ‘You’ll be executed for treason, all of you!’

His shouts were muffled as his mouth was covered again.

‘Execution,’ said Sung slowly, and the word seemed to carry the weight of a physical object. It hung heavy in the air. Still gripping Seven, he turned back to the crowd, sweeping his gaze over them. ‘Lies. Mr Pearson has aptly hit upon the two things TMK is founded upon. Creating lies in the very things we trust the most – our own memories. And using those lies to execute innocents.’

Seven saw the expressions on the ball-goers’ faces. Doubt flickered in their eyes, along with confusion, anger, fear. There was no belief yet  …  but there was the space for it.

Maybe
, he thought, a flush of hope spreading through him,
this is actually gonna work!

And then the roar of a second explosion ripped through the night air.

The next things happened so quickly they all seemed to bleed into one long, terrible moment. Screams. The shuddering ground. Sung’s hand dropping from his. Thuds of gunfire rising, drawing nearer. People scattering, the crowd turning once more into a crushing throng of chaos as men in red jackets – the London Guard – charged round the side of the house, guns aimed at the stage.

They’d cleared through Takeshi’s defence, Seven realised. They’d bombed them, all those boys.

‘We have to get out of here!’

A small, warm hand slipped into his and then he and Alba were off, running to the edge of the stage, stumbling down and careening wildly through the panicked crowd, not looking back, not waiting to see if they were being followed, just running as fast as they could, getting as far the eff away as possible from this hell of a night.

92

They charged into the flame-cut darkness of the outer edges of the Ball, slipping on the frosty lawn, feet pounding in time with their heartbeats. Screams and gunfire beat against their backs. Alba chanced a quick look over her shoulder but could only see a mess of fire-lit figures, the silhouettes of fighting bodies.

And then it hit her.

‘Dolly!’

She dragged Seven to a stop. Panting, she doubled over, clutching the stitch in her side.

‘We have to go back,’ she gasped between gulps of breaths. ‘We have to find her!’

‘Alba  … ’

She tugged him in the direction of the Ball. ‘She was with you and the Movement, yes? She might still be back there! She might be hurt!’

Alba pulled harder but Seven was rooted to the spot. She felt like screaming at him.
What’s
wrong
with you?
she thought desperately.
Don’t you understand? Dolly’s my family! I can’t leave her!

‘Alba,’ Seven repeated, firmer this time, and it was only then that she heard it in his voice.

Dolly was dead.

She dropped his hand as though it had burned her.

No.

Seven took a step towards her but she backed away, stumbling on the icy grass.

No!

Alba couldn’t breathe. She felt as though she were dying. Her chest was cleaving in two, her heart shattering into tiny pieces of glass that were digging into her insides.

A few people ran past them across the shadowy grounds, but they were like ghosts, echoes, distant and untouchable.

‘No,’ Alba breathed, and it came out like a question.

A beg.

Seven answered softly, ‘Yes.’

She stared at him through blurred eyes. ‘When?’ she croaked. ‘How?’

‘She was shot when we were escaping. She – she died in the car on the way here. When we arrived.’

Alba felt sick. Dolly had been
here
. She’d been so close, and she hadn’t got to see her, talk to her one last time. Hold her in her arms and tell her that she loved her, that she couldn’t have ever asked for a better friend. That Alba thought of her as a sister and it didn’t matter what their blood said,
she
was her family.

Seven moved closer. He took both of her hands in his. ‘Do you want to see her?’ he asked.

Alba closed her eyes and nodded.

They moved slower now, partly because it felt safer in the dark, moonlit grounds of the estate, far from the fight raging back at the Ball. But they were also slower because Alba couldn’t run. She was having a hard enough time just walking, staying upright,
breathing
. It took every inch of her energy to keep from dropping to the ground and screaming her lungs apart.

When they reached the lake, the Serpentine’s surface was still and silvered in the starlight. Shadows of willows dipped their long leaves into the water at the edges of the lake. The soft rush of the water filled the air like a lullaby.

Alba saw blurrily that there was a car waiting on the bank beside the lake.

‘I thought there’d be more,’ Seven muttered. ‘This was their getaway spot. Where’re the rest of the cars?’

‘They went to help.’

A voice sounded from the car. A few seconds later, a girl’s thin silhouette came out from behind it.

‘Loe,’ Seven said, sounding relieved.

The girl stepped closer, moonlight washing over her to reveal a face so torn and swollen she looked disfigured.

‘Who’s with you?’ she asked.

‘Alba.’

There was a pause.

‘Your
girlfriend
?’

The girl’s voice took on a mocking tone, and suddenly Seven moved forward to wrap his arms around her.

‘You’re back,’ he croaked.

She flashed a crooked smile. ‘Barely.’ When they broke apart, she took a heavy breath. ‘They explained everything to me while we were waiting. But they left when they got an SOS message from the others at the Ball. Took the cars. They’re hoping to get away straight after the fight – said we could have this one.’

‘I can’t drive,’ Seven said.

‘Well, learn.’

Alba listened to their conversation as though she were far away; their voices reached her thickly through her tears. When she couldn’t bear it any longer, she asked, ‘Can I see Dolly now?’

The girl’s eyes met hers. Understanding darted between them, and she nodded. Silently, she led Alba and Seven to a willow at the edge of the lake and brushed back its leaves, stepping aside to let Alba through.

But before she went in, Alba stopped. Suddenly, panic gripped her. Dolly was dead. If Alba saw her, saw her body, then she would know it was real, and forever she’d have the image to haunt her, to replace the memories of her laughing, smiling handmaid with the darker, still, shadow version.

Alba turned back to Seven. Tears flowed fast down her cheeks. ‘I don’t think I can,’ she said, voice breaking.

He was by her side at once. He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms tenderly around her.

‘Yes, you can. You can do this, Alba.’

She shook her head, face still pressed into the warm fabric of his jumper. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Well, I know you can.’

‘She’s dead, Seven,’ Alba breathed. ‘Dolly’s dead.’

‘I know. But nothing can bring her back now. And you’ll never forgive yourself if you leave without saying goodbye.’

It was that which finally made her realise what she had to do. Sniffing, Alba pulled away. She met Seven’s eyes and nodded, then took a deep breath and stepped through the willow’s curtain of leaves into the hushed darkness below.

Dolly was lying at the base of the tree. Her silhouette was small. Still. Alba’s heart skipped at the sight of her, and her tears flowed faster, warm as they traced down her face, but she forced herself on. She crouched down beside Dolly. Reaching out, she cupped her handmaid’s cold cheek as gently as she could.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Alba whispered. ‘I’m sorry you were dragged into this. And I’m sorry I can’t drag you back out.’

Her voice broke. Letting out a soft cry she collapsed, holding Dolly tight, wishing she’d been able to see her one last time, just to tell her what she’d never told her enough.

That Alba loved her.

That she loved her more than sunshine and moonbeams. That she loved her to the ends of the earth and back. That she had loved her – and
would
love her – every day, every night, every single moment of her life.

4.40 p.m., West Gloucestershire countryside

Seven had been out fishing at the river all afternoon. Sometimes Alba came with him. Not that she joined in; she just sat beside him, wrapped in a thick coat he’d stolen for her from the farmhouse, staring out in silence at the water rushing by. But today she’d stayed back.

The river was starting to ice over. December was just around the corner, and he could feel winter in the air. There was a cold, bitter wind that made his nose run. The ground was covered in frost. It glittered in the misty grey light like a field of crushed diamonds.

Seven wished it
were
diamonds. They could do with more money at the moment (could do with
any
money at the moment).

The walk back to the barn from the river took over an hour. Seven’s fingers were freezing by the time he arrived. He fumbled with the latch bolted across the barn doors, easing it up, then slipped inside. He still worried each time he went in. But the farmhouse was a good distance away, and from what he’d observed this was the least used of their two barns, and they’d not been caught yet.

Seven felt a touch of pride. ‘Still got it,’ he muttered.

‘Got what? Your charm? Your looks? Trust me, you never had any in the first place.’

‘A pleasure as always to see you too, Loe.’

She moved out from her lookout spot by the door, throwing him a mocking smile. Three weeks on and she was looking much better, though her face was still shadowed with bruises and her right ankle was twisted oddly, making her walk with a limp. She was dressed in a big black hunting jacket and a pair of men’s trousers. Her hair hung messily around her face.

Seven handed Loe the newspaper he’d wrapped the fish in and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘How was she today?’ he asked.

Loe shrugged. ‘Better, I think. Moving about a bit more. She’s telling Mika a story right now.’

He followed her gaze up past the space of the barn’s lower level – cluttered with bales of hay and broken tractor parts, the concrete ground hidden beneath mussed straw – to the upper floor covering the back half of the building. It was just an open ledge with a ladder running up to it, but they’d piled some of the haystacks along it to create their own private space. It was where they slept and spent most of their time when they were in the barn, just in case anyone came in and they needed to hide.

A hushed voice drifted down.

Nodding a thanks to Loe, Seven crossed to the ladder, climbing effortlessly up the wooden rungs (if only skid-thieving had been this easy). Squeezing through a gap in the haystacks at the top, he put on his widest grin and shouted –

‘Boo!’

Alba and Mika were at the far end of the balcony. Mika was wrapped in a puffy coat, lying on her elbows and gazing up at Alba, who was wearing a khaki farmer’s coat and a tartan scarf. Her hair was loose and long. It hung in thick auburn waves past her shoulders, golden strands shining in the dim light of the barn.

‘Seven! Seven! Seven!’

Mika pounced on him at once. Her little arms squeezed round his neck. He laughed, picking her up round the waist, and walked over to Alba. He had to crouch to avoid hitting his head on the sloping roof of the barn.

Alba’s eyes lifted to meet his. They were red, and her skin was still a little sallow, but her cheeks were fuller now, almost like they were before.

She managed a tiny smile, and Seven’s heart flipped. It still did that every time she smiled at him, which unfortunately wasn’t a lot lately.

‘What story has Alba been telling you, huh?’ he asked, sitting down. He peeled Mika off him and set her back on her feet.

Mika snuggled in his lap. ‘One about her friend Dolly! She was a naughty
maid. She showed Alba how to trap frogs by the lake and then put them in the servants’ beds!’ She squirmed, looking wide-eyed at Alba. ‘Can you teach me? Please! I want to try it on Loe!’

Alba glanced away. ‘Soon,’ she promised.

Seven pinched Mika’s cheeks. ‘Go help Loe with dinner – otherwise you know she’ll probably end up poisoning us.’

Giggling, Mika ran off and swung down the ladder, leaving Seven and Alba alone.

‘Any more news?’ Alba asked quietly.

He nodded. ‘I caught a little on the way back.’ Shifting closer, he took one of her hands and cradled it in his lap with both of his. ‘There’ve been more uprisings in South. Sounds like the new stand-in Lord Minister is doing his best to deal with it, trying to create a better relationship between North and South. Seems like there’s good progress on the investigation into TMK now, too. More evidence coming through. And  … ’ Seven hesitated, watching her carefully. ‘Those involved with TMK have been charged with murder. Their trails will start in a few weeks.’

‘Good,’ Alba said. Her voice was hard. She took a deep breath. ‘I mean, as long as the trials are fair and just. The nationwide ban on executions
is
still in place, isn’t it?’

She avoided Seven’s eyes, and he knew she was thinking of her father.

‘Yeah, it is.’

Alba relaxed a little at his answer. Seven moved closer so he was sitting at her side, his back propped against the wall. He tucked an arm round her shoulders. She leant in, pressing her face into his chest. She smelled of straw – what
didn’t
now? – and of that soft, floral scent of hers.

He thought of how broken she’d been after the Winter-turn Ball. How stepping into the shadow of that willow had transformed her somehow. She’d left something behind there; something more than Dolly’s body.

Seven didn’t know if she’d ever get it back.

Alba hadn’t said a word the whole journey from Hyde Park Estate, Seven driving wildly out of the break in the fence that the Movement had cut for their getaway, then through the moonlit streets of North to the river. Nobody had chased them. The entire London Guard must have been at the Ball, fighting the Movement.

She’d continued to be silent as they’d crossed the river on a water-taxi – illegally paid for with Alba’s necklace – to pick up Mika from Loe’s home at Bankside. Because of course the London Guard hadn’t given Loe the reward they’d promised for her giving up information on Seven. After that, they’d travelled for hours up the Thames, far out of the city and deep into unregulated country land.

Alba still hadn’t spoken when they made camp in a forest near the river, lost in endless countryside, moving every day, Seven having to steal food and other supplies from farmhouses and local villages.

It was only when they’d come across this unused barn that she finally, finally spoke.

‘I’m tired. Can we stop here for a little while?’

Everyone had seemed glad she’d suggested it. They were all tired, all craving a place to stop and call home, even if it was only temporary.

They’d been in the barn now for a week. Each day, Seven and Loe – they were the two thieves of the group after all – went to steal the things they needed: warm clothes, food, blankets. They only took the essentials to survive. Seven had had enough of stealing for a lifetime, but until they figured out where they were going to go and how they could earn money legitimately, it would have to do.

They tried to catch the news on Net programmes when they passed houses or shops. This was how they’d learnt about the impact of the Movement’s actions at the Ball. Despite its abrupt ending, the Movement’s suggestions on the night and the broadcast they’d sent out over the Net had been enough for an official national inquiry to be launched into TMK. Sung, Kola, Axel, Nihail and the rest of the Movement members were aiding the investigation, though they themselves were awaiting trial for what happened at the Ball. Seven was hoping all charges against them would be dropped once their allegations about The Memory Keepers were proved to be true.

And a few days ago, Seven and Loe had overheard a broadcast mentioning that Oxana had divorced Alastair White and left the country. They’d decided not to tell Alba. At least, not yet. Seven hadn’t told her about what he’d seen in the memory Takeshi had made him alter either. He was pretty sure he never would. Why cause her more pain?

If there was anything he and Alba had learnt from what had happened, it was that memories were sometimes best left well alone.

Before he’d left the river that afternoon, Seven had stood looking out at the rushing water. There was something he’d been wanting to do for a while and it finally felt like the right time. Bowing his head, he pulled off the long chain hanging round his neck.

The key to his memorium.

He could have thrown it away weeks ago. Before the Ball, even. As soon as his flat had been taken over by the London Guard. But something had held him back. The key represented everything it used to unlock –

New worlds.

New experiences.

Freedom.

But Seven didn’t need a key for those things any more. He didn’t need a memory-machine or skids. He didn’t need to steal parts of other people’s lives, because he finally had his own life, his own memories to make. And when he’d thrown the key into the river, watching it disappear under the churning water, he knew he could finally let go of his past and move forward into his future.

Alba gave a soft sigh, shifting under his arm, bringing him back to the barn where they were tucked up in a corner under the sloping roof. He smoothed the hair away from her cheeks and kissed her forehead.

The truth was, Seven didn’t have an effing clue about any of it. Not one. He didn’t know how long they’d be able to stay here. Where they’d go after, what they’d do, how they’d live. But he did know one thing for certain: they’d be doing it together. Alba, Loe, Mika and him.

All right, he’d be the first to admit it was a weird little family. And half the time he wondered how on earth they’d not alerted the people in the farmhouse nearby with all their squabbling. But he had a feeling they’d be OK. Because for the first time in Seven’s life,
his life
felt like enough. He had Alba by his side. He had someone – three someones – to love  …  and to love him.

Loe’s voice reached them from below.

‘Could you have caught any more puny little lumps of fish, Seven? I’ll do it myself if you’re always gonna be this rubbish.’

Well, perhaps the word love was a
bit
strong when it came to Loe.

‘Feel free,’ he shouted back down, grinning. ‘I’d like to see
you
try.’

And, though he might just have been imagining it, because it was so quiet a sound and her face was turned into his chest, buried in the fabric of his jumper, Seven thought he heard Alba let out a little snort of laughter.