The whole house was silent as Aubrey and I walked hand in hand to the kitchen.
“Stop grinning!”
“I can’t,” I said.
“Well try. You look like a mad man.”
I pulled her arm behind my back, drawing her into me. “Mad about you.”
“You are so cheesy, Scott,” she said, but kissed me anyway.
We made our way through the house and to the kitchen where Frankie was already sitting, flicking through the morning papers.
“Good morning,” she said cheerily, as we joined her. “How was your evening? I hope the children all behaved themselves.”
“It was… fun,” I said, smiling at Aubrey.
“How was your ball?” Aubrey said, nudging me to behave.
“Oh, productive but tedious. Lots of heads of state falling over themselves to be
seen
to do the right thing. Although actually making sure they live up to their promises is quite another thing. But I guess it’s all worth it in the end. Coffee? It’s from a project I fund in Ethiopia.” She raised a pot of steaming black liquid from the stove and waved it at us. I could smell the smoky richness from across the room.
“Yes, please,” I said.
“Oh, a package came for you early this morning.” She gestured with the coffee pot to a large white polystyrene box on the table. It was covered in ARES stickers. “I didn’t want to wake you.” She handed me a mug of coffee, smiling. “I thought you could do with the rest.”
Aubrey peeled off the stickers and lifted the lid on the box. Inside was a black computer screen and a tangle of wires. It looked a little like the simulators and the sight of the sensors sent a shiver down my spine. “It’s the eval kit,” Aubrey said.
“Oh, that’s good.” Frankie handed a mug to Aubrey.
“Yes, so we can do the evaluation and be on our way,” Aubrey said placing the mug next to the box without even sipping at it.
“Why the rush?” Frankie said. “I would have thought it was good to be out of that building for a while. And away from Sir Richard. Does he still have that stupid moustache?”
Aubrey smiled despite herself. “He still waxes it every day.”
“The man’s an idiot. I remember he put me on detention for a week for sneaking out of dorms. When he was the one who’d shown us how to sneak out. Hypocrite. But then, as soon as a man gets a whiff of responsibility it’s what it seems to do to them all.”
Aubrey joined Frankie in sighing over the follies of men. I just stared into my mug.
“Why don’t you do it, Scott?” Frankie said suddenly, her ice eyes boring into me.
“Huh?” I said looking up.
“The evaluation? Why don’t you do it?” She smiled, and I felt my cheeks go warm.
“Sure!” I said, wanting to impress her.
“But you’ve never done one before,” Aubrey said, uncertain.
“It can’t be that hard. I mean, you do it.”
Aubrey blinked and it took me a moment to realise why she looked so shocked. I replayed what I’d said and shook my head. “No, that came out wrong. I mean I’ve seen you do it.” I covered my face with my hand.
Frankie laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure Aubrey knew you were only joking. I’m sure she knows you’re perfectly capable. Take a seat.” She pulled up a wooden chair and sat at the table. I glanced over at Aubrey to see if I was still in trouble. She skidded the box and her tablet across the table in my direction and narrowed her eyes at me. It was touch and go.
I took my seat as instructed, while Aubrey remained standing, and launched the application.
“Um, if you could place the electrodes on your temples,” I said, trying to remember how the process worked. Normally one of the doctors at ARES carried out the procedure, although Aubrey had done the evaluation on number three.
Frankie did as instructed, lifting her honey hair out of the way. “And hold that silver thing.” I plugged the wires into the tablet and launched the evaluation programme.
“So, Scott,” Frankie said, curling her hand around the metallic cylinder. “You have my full attention. What do
you
want to ask me?”
What did I want to ask her? Not the stupid list of questions ARES had prepared for us, to reveal if a person had psychopathic tendencies, that was for sure. I really wanted to ask her something more important. More personal.
“How do you do it? This place. The children.” I ignored Aubrey’s little cough.
“It’s easy when you know you’re doing the right thing.” The monitor bleeped into life. A steady, even line that meant she was telling the truth.
“But it must require a lot of strength. And to do it all on your own, without a husband or a boyfriend. A beautiful woman like you, it can’t be hard to find someone?” I sensed Aubrey moving out of the corner of my eye, only I didn’t take my eyes off Frankie’s face.
“Oh, you are sweet. But after my husband died, I decided to put my all into Pandora and the children. Theirs is the only love I need.”
“Scott,” Aubrey said. “Are you going to do the evaluation or not?”
“Huh? Oh, OK.” I looked down at the list of questions I was supposed to ask. The first one seemed rather stupid, but I asked it anyway. “Do you ever feel that your accomplishments go unnoticed?”
“I wouldn’t say I have that many accomplishments.” Again, the readout of her brain activity and pulse remained steady.
I made a cross next to the question with my finger and asked the next one. “Do you ever feel that you are better than other people? Oh, that’s just silly. You are better than other people. We won’t bother with that.” I marked that with an X. And the question after it, which asked if the subject ever found themselves feeling isolated from their peers.
“Scott, I think I should take over,” Aubrey said, walking over and trying to pull the tablet out of my hand.
“I think Scott is doing just perfectly, Aubrey,” Frankie said. And Aubrey backed up, one step at a time. I grinned at her and went back to the questions.
“I think we can skip most of these. Superiority, no. Disgust in your fellow humans, no. Oh, this is a good one. Do you ever experience fits of rage?”
“Well, I can get angry. When I see the injustice in the world. But I wouldn’t describe it as a fit of rage.” The steady beeping of the machine sounded like birdsong.
I marked the final cross on the screen. There was something else I’d wanted to ask Frankie. Something that hadn’t been on the list of questions. But I couldn’t remember. It probably didn’t matter.
“Well, I think that’s everything, don’t you?” Frankie said.
“Yep,” I agreed. I quickly typed up a summary, about what an incredible person and upstanding citizen she was, hit the file button and watched as it was mailed back to HQ.
“Hang on, you’ve not asked all of the questions you’re supposed to,” Aubrey said, yanking the tablet away from me before I had a chance to stop her this time.
“I think Scott did brilliantly,” Frankie said, peeling the sensors away from her skin, her eyes shining.
I beamed.
“Besides, you don’t really think I’m a psychopath do you, Aubrey?”
Aubrey let the tablet drop back onto the table. “I guess not.”
“Good. I’m afraid I have an important call to make, but stay as long as you like. Go for a walk in the woods. Relax a little.” All of this was said directly to me and it sounded like the best idea ever.
“We should be getting back,” Aubrey said.
“Come on Aubrey, chill out. You’re so uptight.”
“I’m… I’m what?” Aubrey stepped in close and whispered. “What’s got into you, Scott?”
“You know what would loosen you up?” I waggled my eyebrow at her. Then slapped my hand to my forehead to stop it. What was I doing?
Aubrey straightened up, her face suddenly still and cold. “When you’ve stopped acting like an idiot, I’ll be in the van.” She spun around and stormed up the stairs.
I tried to stand to follow her, my stomach churning with guilt, but I found I couldn’t move.
“Don’t worry about her,” Frankie said. “You know what teenage girls are like. All hormones. More coffee?”
My hands were already shaking from the strength of the last one, but I nodded my head for more.
“Ella is the same now she’s going through entropy. It’s such a strain, knowing that the thing that makes you special is fading.”
“Ella is young to be going through entropy.”
“She seems quite taken with you,” Frankie said, ignoring my question.
“Who does?”
“Ella. It’s nice for her to have people of her own age around. You should stay a little longer. Take her for a walk. She’d like that. You’d like that too, wouldn’t you?”
“I, um…” I said. Something didn’t feel right. I looked down at my hands shaking from too much caffeine. “Aubrey’s right. We should head back.”
“Forget about Aubrey,” Frankie snapped and I looked at her once more. “Forget about her for an hour or so. She’s not your boss. And after all, you’re the more powerful Shifter; that much is clear. I can see you’ve been through a lot, Scott. More than Aubrey can understand, am I right?”
I nodded slightly.
“It’s OK. I understand. That’s what this place is all about, Scott. It’s a safe haven for kids like you. Kids who’ve seen too much. There’s a home for you here, if you want it. You just say the word.” She patted my hand.
“That sounds good.”
“Good,” Frankie said, giving my hand a final squeeze. “Think about it. But first, take Ella out. She can show you our grotto out in the woods.”
I would stay. I did want to go for a walk in the woods with Ella. What a brilliant idea.
“Yes. I’d like that.”
“Wonderful. Ella will be so happy.” Frankie stood up and crossed over to my side of the table. She laid her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’re a sweet boy, Scott. Do something for me, will you?”
I nodded. I would do anything for her.
“Don’t change,” her voice oozed like honey. “Stay exactly as you are.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As soon as Frankie had left the room that glowing feeling started to fade. I was trying to remember what I had been doing, like when you walk into a room and can’t remember why you came in. There was definitely something I had to do.
“I forgot to give you this back.”
I turned to see Ella at the foot of the stairs holding my jacket.
That’s what I was forgetting. My jacket. I stood up and took it off her. “Thanks,” I said. But still something didn’t feel right. There was still something I was supposed to do.
“Frankie said you might like to see the grotto, out in the woods?”
That was it. I had to go and see the grotto. “Yes, I’d love that. Thank you.”
Her face lit up and I felt that glow again.
I followed her out of the kitchen door and across the lawn. The dew still clung to the grass so the hems of my trousers were damp by the time I’d entered the woods on the edge of the grounds. There was a small, beaten path cutting between the trees. Birds sang in the branches and the sun broke through the canopy. It was a perfect early spring morning. But it didn’t feel perfect to me. The trees seemed to be pressing down on me, watching me.
I stumbled over a tree stump and Ella caught my arm.
“It’s just through here,” she said, pointing at a break in the trees up ahead.
She pulled a bramble branch out of my way so I could get past.
The grotto was a small domed building, made out of stacks of white stone, about ten feet high and the same across. When she’d said grotto, I’d imagined the kind of things you saw in shopping malls, where you could tell Santa what you wanted for Christmas. But there was something Stone Age about this place. Something pagan.
Ella walked up the small steps leading to the arched entrance and waited for me. I followed her.
Inside, every inch of the walls had been covered in broken pottery and shards of glass. Reds, blues, yellows and bright greens. It was an assault of colour. A rainbow.
Why did that seem so familiar? “Who made this place?” I asked.
“It was here when Frankie moved in. We think it’s as old as the house itself. Maybe even older. Some of the pottery used is Roman, see?”
She pointed at a triangle of broken red pottery which, I could see as I looked closer, showed a picture of a man and woman painted in black paint. It took me a while to realise what the figures were doing. When I finally did, I blushed and turned away.
Ella took a seat on a small metal bench under the single window. A wild rose bush crept its way in through the opening, and wrapped around the leg of the bench.
“I come here all the time,” she said, looking up at the domed roof. “When I want to get away from all the little children. It’s hard, being the only grown-up around here, other than Frankie.”
“Grown-up, but you’re still a kid, Ella.”
“I am not. I’m a woman now.” Her chin jutted in offended pride.
“Hmm, OK. If you say so. Me, I’m in no hurry to grow up. Sometimes, I wish I could go back and be a kid again. Six or seven. And just play all day. No worrying about exams or bullies. No ARES.”
I saw a single square of mirror that had been used to tile the ceiling; in among all the colour it looked like a black hole. I moved and caught my reflection in it. I looked so very small.
“I don’t remember much about my childhood,” Ella said. “My earliest memories are of this place and Frankie. I think I remember my father’s face sometimes. But then I don’t know if it wasn’t the face of the man who killed him.”
I wasn’t really listening to her. I was too busy looking at the fragments of images on the walls. “I guess you owe a lot to Frankie, then. I mean, she saved you and all?” I looked back to face her.
“I suppose,” Ella gazed up through the window at where a bird was singing on a nearby branch. “She has made me what I am.”
“Yeah, she’s something. I’ve never met a woman like her before. So…” I struggled to find the right word. “So forceful.” That didn’t seem right.