The Key to Starveldt (16 page)

‘Are they coming back?’ Electra asked, eyeing off the extra kebabs. ‘I mean, there’s no point letting food go to waste –’

‘They’re not,’ said Laine. She looked at Solace, her face locked into the same distant mask she’d worn earlier. Slowly, she rose to her knees, pushing threads of disobedient hair away from her eyes. ‘Actually, I’m going to look for them.’

‘By yourself ?’ Evan blinked at her, momentarily distracted from his drinking session with Manx.

Laine raised an eyebrow. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, I mean, it’s just – it’s a big Rookery, is all, and we’re already a bit lost, you know, separated, what with the wandering and running away, but if you’re happy to go –’

‘I’m happy,’ said Laine, shortly.

She didn’t sound happy, but as nobody else objected to her departure, it seemed not to matter.

‘Good luck,’ Solace called, to Laine’s retreating back.

The psychic paused. Her head bobbed in acknowledgement. Then she, too, was gone.

‘Weird day,’ Jess remarked, to no one in particular.

‘Weird everything,’ Solace muttered.

For the next few minutes, she sat in silence, trying to will herself into a more normal frame of mind. What was bothering Harper, Laine and Paige? Did Liluye sense it – was that why she’d told them to learn about themselves? Whatever their secret was, the group was slowly fracturing around it, unable to bear the tension.

Suddenly, like a surging wave, she felt the Castalian magic rising through her blood again, setting off fireworks in her nerves. Her right hand spasmed so badly that she dropped her water cup; her lungs seemed to freeze, and it was all she could do to stay upright.

She’d made no sound, but despite his drunkenness and the noisy laughter of their friends, Evan realised something was wrong. She saw him sit up – sway up, really – and then she blinked, and his arm was around her shoulders.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘No.’ She ground the word out. Her mouth flooded with saliva, her stomach churned. ‘Sick. I feel sick.’

‘We’ll be back soon,’ he called. Manx laughed and yelled something – it sounded suspiciously like ‘Taxi!’ – which did not improve Solace’s mood. With Evan’s help, she staggered to her feet, letting him lead her across the grass, away from their friends.

‘Quiet,’ she whispered. She felt concussed. When had the Rookery grown so
loud
? ‘Somewhere quiet.’

Her legs were dead weights. Another spasm jolted through her, stronger than the last. This time, not even Evan could keep her standing. Solace gasped and dropped to her knees. Everything was a blur. She felt the visions forming, dragging her after them like a half-tossed rider with one foot stuck in the stirrup. Her shoulder burned beneath Evan’s hand. He had to get away, she realised desperately, he was too close, his
Trick
was too close, but before she could find the words to explain, the Castalian magic leapt between them, tangling his Rarity with hers.

Unconsciousness was a lightning bolt. The visions struck them both.

Paige runs blindly, zigzagging through the crowds, dodging obstacles and animals. Several times, she startles cries from unseen bystanders. Throat burning raw, she runs through the half-open door of an unattended building. Sniffing and gasping, she straightens and looks around, one hand pushing flat against the stitch in her side. She is in a small theatre, no bigger than an average classroom. Lights burn low and yellow at the foot of a wooden stage, casting shadows on the royal blue curtain hung across its length. Behind her, the door is yet to swing shut.

Taking a deep breath, she examines her surrounds. The floor is level just inside the arch, but soon slopes down towards the stage. Illuminated by a length of floor-lights, an aisle separates two sections of built-in cinema seats. Each headrest is decorated with a different silver-threaded bird. Here, a laughing kookaburra, beak open; there, a peacock, tail-feathers half unfurled. She winces at the swan, depicted as if gliding down an invisible river, and skips ahead to a rooster, head thrown back mid-crow. She moves usher-like through the empty theatre, touching each bird in turn. The monotony soothes her.

‘Paige?’

The voice belongs to Laine. Paige stiffens.

‘Leave. Now.’

‘No.’

Paige turns. Laine stands at the top of the aisle. She is neither dishevelled nor out of breath, but maddeningly calm, every silken hair on her head in place. Gripping the nearest headrest, Paige forces herself to speak.

‘How is it,’ she asks, ‘that you can always find me?
I
don’t even know where I am.’

Laine takes another step forwards. ‘I don’t know. I just can. Does it matter, really?’

‘No.’

‘You need to tell him the truth.’ Laine moves slowly down the aisle, coming to a halt one row from Paige. ‘You know that.’

Paige doesn’t answer. Hot tears simmer in her eyes. She shakes her head angrily, wiping at them with the back of a hand. For an instant, guilt overwhelms her, and anger, and grief. She stares at Laine, wanting to hate her, seeking any shred of smugness or satisfaction to vindicate her reaction, but finds no judgement in those pale blue eyes. Only exhaustion, and care. To Paige, it stings like a lash. Her legs tremble.

‘Why now?’ She croaks the question.

Laine sighs, waving a hand at their surroundings. ‘You know why. Because we’re in this place, and dangerous things are happening. Because it’s killing you, and poisoning him. Because we need each other.’ A flash of desperation crosses her face. ‘Paige, I can’t carry it anymore. It’s eating me up. Eating me alive. Every touch, every glance, knowing I know. It feels like cancer.’

‘Can’t you tell him?’ Even to her own ears, she sounds childish. ‘Why does it have to be me? It’s not fair!’

‘It was always going to be you.’ Laine runs a hand over her face. ‘Promise me, Paige. Promise you’ll do it. Or would you rather he guessed?’

‘I –’ Paige wants to run, but there is nowhere left. She’s reached the ends of the earth. ‘No.’ The word is a whisper. ‘I’ll tell.’

Laine nods, but doesn’t speak. Her hands are shaking. She hesitates only briefly, then turns and leaves the way she came.

Paige sits down and closes her eyes.

The vision shifts.

Frowning, a young boy scuffs his feet in the dirt, twisting the chains of the swing. Holding out a lean, brown hand, he concentrates and summons fire. Red flames lick along his palm, warm without burning. Elation blooms in him, but fear follows swiftly: what is he? A hero, like in the comics he reads? Or a monster? The fire vanishes with his doubts, slipping out of existence without so much as a puff of smoke. The first time it happened, he thought he’d imagined it. Now he knows better.

The vision shifts again. The same boy, slightly older, sits on the same swing. His legs are longer, and this time he is not alone. A tiny girl with adoring eyes and scraggly white-blonde hair sits cross-legged before him, one hand tugging playfully on his shoelace.

‘Show me, Harp,’ she begs. ‘Come on. You promised.’

Sighing a little, Harper calls his gift. By his own reckoning, this is not much more impressive than striking a match. But the girl’s face brightens with awe and he sits a little straighter, cautioning her not to burn herself as he holds out a hand for inspection. Giggling at her own boldness, his companion darts a finger through the fire. Harper shouts in alarm and jerks his hand back, but the girl is unharmed. Impishly, she waggles her fingers at him.

‘See? I’m fine.’

‘You’re so stupid!’ he shouts, but even so, the glow of pride has not left him, and she, realising this, pokes out her tongue.

The vision unwinds like a ragged scarf, ravelling forwards to show another day, some weeks later. The young girl, Paige, talks animatedly to Harper’s father, a tall man with sparse black hair and quick brown eyes. Harper rummages in a kitchen cupboard. They have just worked out that Paige is exactly nine and a half years old. They want to celebrate. Harper produces a plastic shaker of instant pikelet mixture.

‘Do we have any candles?’ he asks. ‘We should stick birthday candles in them!’

‘Half-birthday,’ Paige corrects him, full of a child’s sense of ceremony, ‘but yes.’

Harper’s father looks between girl and boy, as though weighing something up.

‘Tell you what.’ Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls out his wallet, thumbing through the notes. Selecting a twenty, he hands it to Harper. ‘Why don’t you run down to the shop and buy some? Paige and I can start on the pikelets.’

Harper beams at this lofty responsibility, handing the mixture to Paige. ‘Okay! I’ll be really quick!’

Harper runs down the hall and into the yard. The screen door bangs behind him. Paige smiles. A hand settles on her shoulder.

‘Paige,’ says Harper’s father, ‘you’re a very pretty girl. Do you know that?’

Paige didn’t know that, and says as much. Crouching down to her level, Harper’s father looks her in the eyes. There’s sweat on his upper lip. ‘My name’s Don. Will you promise to call me that, when we’re alone?’

In the pit of her stomach, Paige feels uneasy. Unable to do anything else, she nods. Don smiles. One hand is still on her shoulder. With the other, he cups the back of her head, stroking her hair.

‘Say my name for me?’

‘Don.’ She tries to move, but his grip on her shoulder tightens. He smiles at her, but his eyes look wrong. Then he leans in and kisses the corner of her mouth.

‘We’re going to be good friends,’ he whispers. ‘Just like you and Harper. Aren’t we, Paige?’

In their distant seat of dreaming, Solace and Evan shudder. No, no, no, no. But these things have already happened. There is nothing they can do.

Time passes. Paige frequently visits Harper, rarely the other way around. Her foster parents, though reasonable in all other respects, don’t approve of the older boy, and barely tolerate him. She has no other friends. Paige can’t lose Harper. Can’t be uprooted again, change schools again, find another new family. But the cost of silence is killing her.

Don is killing her.

All too often, he finds an excuse to send Harper away during Paige’s visits – to go to the shops, to get something from the garage. He calls her beautiful. She doesn’t feel beautiful. She hates Don and hates herself. So many times, she wants to scream. But if she screams, Harper will know and they won’t be friends any more. Don tells her this. She knows it’s true.

Paige turns ten. Then eleven. Then twelve. She doesn’t tell, and Harper doesn’t know. Through the distance of dreams, Solace and Evan feel themselves break beneath the weight of silence.

The vision changes again.

Laine and Harper lie tangled beneath black sheets, her head resting lightly on his chest. Though Harper sleeps, Laine is awake, her blue eyes wide and staring. She cannot control her Trick. Intimacy and strong emotion leave all minds vulnerable, including her own. Harper did not mean to tell. She did not mean to learn. But now she knows the secret of Don, how Harper caught him with Paige one day. They ran away because of it, moving interstate, dodging the system, living in shelters and scraping through school only by the grace of charity workers who knew enough of the world not to report them. Laine knows, and wishes she didn’t. Over and over, she hears Harper’s memory of Paige’s words, and like the echo of an echo, Solace and Evan hear them, too.

‘It was just the once, Harp. And it was bad enough. But only once.’

And even before the vision shifts, an awful understanding wrenches through them. Solace and Evan would close their eyes, but in this place, they have none to close.

Instead, they watch Laine slip out from Harper’s room, tiptoeing through their dingy flat, out the broken door and down a flight of concrete steps. Turning the corner, she runs headlong into Paige, who gasps in pain and surprise. Instinctively, they grab each other’s arms, and in that moment of shock, another truth passes between them. Paige understands what Laine has heard; and Laine, who was already burdened enough, learns that Paige lied – has been lying for years – to spare Harper a deeper grief.

She loves him too much for truth.

Paige stares at Laine and flees, leaving the psychic alone on the steps.

‘Oh,’ Laine whispers. She holds her head and trembles. The vision twists like smoke.

Now, Laine walks as far and fast as she can through the Rookery, desperate to put distance between herself and Paige. Tears burn in her throat. Bad enough her increased psychic sensitivity shows no signs of dissipating; bad enough, too, that she’s had no space to talk to Evan. Everything is already bad enough – did the Great Lie really need to resurface now, and add to her burdens? It has always burdened her, but now it feels like lead has been injected into her heart, the weight of it spreading through her blood, dragging her down into this foreign soil, this strange place, to become little more than metal and ash and bone. Suddenly, there is grass beneath her boots. She stops and sways, but manages not to fall.