“There’s something I need to show you,” he said, but this time he was talking to Joe, not to her.
“Amber needs to come with us,” Joe said.
“Do I?” Amber frowned at him.
“Yes,” Mark said thoughtfully. “That might be why she’s here.”
“None of us need to go anywhere.” Amber shook her head. “Joe, let’s go back into town.”
“There isn’t much time left,” Mark said. Amber thought she heard a note of panic in his voice.
“It’ll be fine,” Joe said to her. “We’ll just go with him, and then we’ll go back.” He turned to Mark. “Is it far?”
“Not especially,” the boy said.
Amber sighed. She didn’t actually want to go with them, but there was no way she could leave Joe to go by himself with this boy who neither of them knew. Especially if he really can do things like speak inside people’s heads, she reminded herself. What else is he able to do that we don’t know about?
Mark looked at Amber for what seemed like a long time before finally he said, “Let’s go.” Then he set off along the path. Amber glanced at Joe, who just shrugged and began walking after Mark. Amber took a deep breath and followed.
After a long while Mark took a new path, and another shortly after that, pausing for a moment to mutter something softly to himself. Joe and Amber followed him for what seemed like hours. After a while Amber glanced at her watch. She reckoned that they still had plenty of time to get back, as long as they didn’t walk too much further. I didn’t think the woods were so large, she remarked to herself. Or so cold, even in the summer.
The latest path that Mark led them along began to slope downwards, across the side of a wooded ravine where ancient trees grew thickly, and great swathes of tall green bracken rose almost up to their shoulders. After a while, Amber could hear the gurgling of a small river, which eventually came into view. I don’t remember there being a river here, she thought. The lake doesn’t have a river coming into it or going out from it- so where does this one go?
The path continued alongside the river, and they followed it as far as a small waterfall. The path became steep at this point, but some stone steps had been set into the earth and they managed to make their way down them towards the waterfall, which poured into a round pool of water.
Mark walked to the edge of the pool and squatted down. He stared into the water for what seemed like a long time, almost as if he’d completely forgotten they were there.
“Why are we here?” Joe asked eventually.
Mark looked up and glanced at him, then looked at Amber. “Are you sure she can be trusted?” he asked him.
“Of course I can,” she said before Joe could reply. “Anyway, Mark, shouldn’t you have asked me that before bringing me here? Who would I tell anyway? Who would believe me?”
“My enemies would believe you,” Mark told her. He looked deadly serious. “They walk amongst your own people. That’s why you can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.” Amber was beginning to think that whatever else he might be, this boy was a bit mad. What normal person would say something like my enemies walk amongst your people or anything like that? For a moment she wondered if he had watched too many horror films- the sort her dad wouldn’t let her watch- but when she looked him up and down she reckoned that he probably hadn’t even watched anything on television before. He might not even know what a television was.
Mark moved to sit on a mossy boulder a little further from the water’s edge. “I’m the last one. The last of my family, although it’s not the sort of family that you two would understand. Not yet anyway. Our purpose has always been to hold back those who create chaos. Those who would destroy humanity.”
Amber frowned. “I don’t know what you mean. Which people in particular?”
“All sorts of people. The ones you don’t see. They’re often behind some of the bad things you might hear about. Some of them are not even people at all.”
“Right.” Amber felt more and more confused, but also a little scared, not just for herself but for Joe too. This boy, whoever he really was, seemed to really believe what he was saying.
She glanced at her watch and realised that she had only an hour to get back for lunch. How had it got so late so quickly? She might have to run part of the way. “Joe, we have to go back. I need to get back in time for lunch and you probably do as well,” she warned.
To her relief he turned and nodded. “Okay. Mark, we have to go.”
“Come back tomorrow,” Mark said. “Just walk as far as where we met today and I’ll see you there. Then we’ll walk here.”
“I don’t know if we should,” Amber said guardedly. “What has this river got to do with these... people who are after you?”
Mark didn’t try and argue with her. He didn’t say anything at all. He just sat there by the pool and watched them leave.
“Joe, I don’t understand any of this,” Amber said later as they finally reached the town. “I don’t understand how that boy can do the things he does. And the things he says...” She shook her head. “We have to tell my dad about this.”
“No!” He grabbed her arm so suddenly that she pulled it away and glared at him. “We can’t tell anyone,” he said. “They wouldn’t believe most of it anyway. They’d just say that we’re getting ourselves into trouble.”
“We probably are, Joe. That’s why we have to tell them.”
“Didn’t you listen to anything that Mark said? We can’t tell anyone about him, because of his enemies...”
“Joe, listen,” Amber said patiently. “This is what I think. I think maybe he does have some special abilities...”
“We know he does,” Joe said stubbornly.
“Okay. Whatever. But I think he’s run away from somewhere. Maybe from a children’s home or maybe from his family, I don’t know. Maybe something bad happened to him and he just had to run away. Or maybe it was because of his powers or abilities or whatever that he had to run away. Maybe they were experimenting on him or something. But I’m not even sure that Mark is his real name. I think he just made up a lot of what he said. Maybe he does have enemies, but they’re just the people he ran away from. I think he’s just made up a lot of stuff to... I don’t know, maybe it’s just his way of trying to protect himself.”
“But even if that’s what you believe,” Joe said, “if you tell your dad about it, he’ll tell the police and social services, they’ll find him, and Mark will probably end up back in the place he ran away from. We can’t do that to him.”
Amber frowned and chewed at her lip, frustrated. She hadn’t thought of it like that. Now she couldn’t decide what to do.
“He trusted us not tell anyone,” Joe continued seriously. “So I think we should just do as he says and go back to see him tomorrow.”
“Please say you’ll come with me,” he said when Amber still couldn’t think of anything to say.
“All right,” she sighed. “I’ll come with you. But we have to try and find out about where he’s really from and see if we can help him. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Joe said, and for a moment he almost smiled. Amber suddenly realised that she hadn’t seen him smile for many days.
Amber hardly slept at all that night, although she felt exhausted because she couldn’t stop thinking about what might happen the next day. After breakfast the next morning (not that she could eat more than a few mouthfuls of it) she said to her dad that she was going out.
“Wait,” her dad said, and something in his voice made Amber’s stomach lurch. “Where are you going?”
“Just into the woods with Joe,” Amber said without thinking. To her horror she started blushing, and it got even worse when her dad stared at her for a while. “Can I go please?” she pleaded eventually. Someone had to say something, or it would just get even more embarrassing. “I’ll be back for lunch if I have to,” she added. She didn’t mean to sound stroppy but that was just the way it came out.
“Why don’t you make some sandwiches, then you can have your lunch while you’re out?” he suggested. “But make sure you’re back by dinner time, okay?”
“Okay,” Amber said, giving him a relieved smile as she turned to head into the kitchen.
A short while later Amber and Joe headed into the woods. As they approached the lake, Mark stepped out from behind a tree, startling them both. They weren’t anywhere near where they’d met him yesterday.
“Come on!” he said. “We have to go now!”
“Why?” Joe asked as they hurried along the path after him.
“Because they know about what I’m doing!” Mark hissed, throwing them a look of panic.
I should have stayed at home and not had any more to do with this, Amber thought numbly as she ran with them through the woods, the sounds of the town and all the familiar things in her life fading into the distance. But at the same time she knew for certain that she had to stay with Joe and make sure nothing bad happened to him. Something- maybe it was a little bit like a voice in her head- told her over and over again that this was the most important thing of all.
They reached the pool at the bottom of the waterfall a while later. “There isn’t any time to explain,” Mark said to them, and they watched as he took his shoes off and walked into the pool. “Joe, follow me,” he called back.
“What are you doing?” Amber demanded. “Why are you walking into the river? What’s the matter with you?!”
Mark didn’t reply.
“What about me?” she asked.
“You need to stay there,” he said without even looking at her.
Charming, Amber thought moodily. She watched as Joe took his socks and trainers off and put his phone into his one of his trainers. Then he rolled up his jeans to the knee to stop them getting wet, before carefully stepping into the water, wincing at the icy cold. Mark had already walked further into the pool, beckoning impatiently for Joe to keep following him.
Amber watched from the river’s edge as the two boys walked across the pool and towards the waterfall. Thankfully the pool didn’t seem to be any deeper even further in, and the flow of the river wasn’t very powerful.
She continued to watch as they reached the waterfall, and Mark turned, waiting for Joe to reach him. “It’s cold!” she heard Joe exclaim. “Why are we even doing this?!”
That’s the best question I’ve heard in a while, Amber thought. This boy is crazy. I don’t think we should see him again.
Mark said nothing back to Joe- nothing that Amber could hear anyway- but he reached out his hand, and Joe took it. Hand in hand they waded on a little further until they were under the waterfall.
Then they disappeared.
Chapter 7
Amber stood in disbelief, staring at the space where Joe and Mark had been just a moment ago. “No,” she muttered, shaking her head. “No, that didn’t happen. It didn’t happen!”
Her legs shook and her heart raced as she ran a little way further up the river to see if there might be a cave entrance or crack in the rock behind the waterfall. But deep down she knew that there wasn’t- it was just solid, wet grey rock behind the water- and soon enough she could see the rock face better and could tell that whatever had happened, they hadn’t suddenly waded into a cave.
And they didn’t go under the water, Amber reminded herself. I was watching them.
She sat on a boulder and stared at the pool and the waterfall for what seemed like hours. “They vanished,” she said to herself several times. She had seen it for herself. They had gone!
Amber got up and walked around a little more, shouting their names. But no reply came.
A while later, she burst into tears and sat crying for a long time. She had no idea what to do. Would they come back or had they disappeared forever? She didn’t know whether to wait for them or run back home and get help, even though the idea of doing that just seemed ridiculous- how could anyone possibly help?
And she knew that even if she did that, no one would believe her. Not exactly, anyway. They would think that Joe and Mark- if they believed that Mark even existed- had been kidnapped by someone. Then there would be a big police search. But what was the point in searching for two kids who had just vanished into thin air? They wouldn’t even have left any clue as to where they’d gone. Their trail ended just over there, under the waterfall.
Wiping tears from her cheeks, Amber suddenly remembered something that Mark had said about not letting anyone else know about him, that they could be his enemies. But from what he said his enemies had found out about him anyway, Amber thought, and she looked around suddenly, feeling afraid. The very idea of Mark’s enemies hunting him somehow made the shadows of the woods seem deeper and darker, as if someone or something lurked nearby, waiting for them to return.
The morning became afternoon, and the afternoon wore on towards the evening. Amber knew that she would have to go home soon, but how could she when all this had happened? Then again, she couldn’t stay here through the night. She would be in so much trouble if she did.
She glanced at her watch. It seemed silly, but she decided to wait until six-thirty to see if they came back.
They’re not coming back, she told herself miserably, but straight away another thought answered it. Of course they are! It was almost like she was shouting to herself inside her head, feeling hopeless but then angry that she should give up hope.
Amber sat and checked her watch every five minutes or even less. She even closed her eyes tightly sometimes and then opened them, hoping more than anything that she would see Joe and Mark wading out of the pool, or hear them sloshing towards her through the water when her eyes were shut.
But she didn’t.
Six-thirty came and went. Amber decided she could afford to wait another five minutes, just in case, but by now she really had given up hope. She felt cold and empty, as if there was nothing but a big hole inside her. It felt even worse every time she glanced at Joe’s trainers which still lay by the riverside, his phone poking out of one of them. They’re all that’s left to remind me of him, she thought.
Blinking back fresh tears, Amber turned and left the riverside. She had no idea what she was going to say when she got back home, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered.
She had walked perhaps twenty yards when she heard someone call out behind her: “Amber!”
“Joe!” she exclaimed as soon as she turned round.
He was standing by the river, a blank look on his face. He only saw her when she shouted his name again and ran towards him.
She hugged him fiercely and couldn’t stop herself crying all over again. “I thought you’d gone forever!” she sobbed.
“What happened?” he muttered. “I don’t remember anything. Not since we came here this morning with Mark...”
Mark, Amber thought suddenly, and she looked around. He wasn’t in the pool or under the waterfall, or anywhere else that she could see.
“He’s still gone,” she murmured. “I saw you both disappear this morning, Joe- and now you’ve come back and he hasn’t.”
He stared at her. For a moment Amber thought he was going to say that he didn’t believe her, but instead he just asked, “What time is it?”
“Gone six-thirty. We need to get back.” A sudden idea came to her, although she had no idea why. “Ring Emma, and I’ll ring my dad. I’ll ask if you can have dinner at ours tonight.”
“Why?” he gave her a puzzled look.
“Because I thought you’d gone forever and now you’ve come back,” Amber said, watching as he put his phone in his pocket and put his socks and trainers on. But at the same time she knew that that wasn’t the only reason. There was something else- something she couldn’t really describe properly. There’s something different about both of us, she thought suddenly. It’s as if there’s a connection that wasn’t there before. I can’t tell what he’s thinking exactly, but I know for sure how he’s feeling.
Another thought came into he
r head, which confused her even more. I’m supposed to protect him. I don’t know how, but that’s what I’m supposed to do.
When she looked into his eyes Amber thought for a moment that there was something different about them. They’re clearer, maybe a little brighter, she told herself. He’s changed. I don’t know how exactly, but he’s definitely changed.
The signals on their phones were too poor for them to call straight away, so they made their way out of the woods and then rang. Joe’s aunt answered his call and said it was fine for him to have dinner at Amber’s as long as he was back by nine thirty.
Amber thought that her dad sounded strange when she called him, as if his voice was trembling a little, but he also said it was fine for Joe to come over. “I think that’s a good idea,” he said. “In fact, it’s probably about time.”
Amber reckoned that was an odd thing to say, but she didn’t think much more about it as they hurried on into the town.
When they got back to her house, Amber’s dad came through from the living room as they were taking their trainers off. He had a look on his face that Amber had never seen before, sort of relieved and unhappy at the same time. He hugged her so strongly that it was almost as if she had disappeared for a while and then come back.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” she blurted out. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Amber,” he said, but the way he said it made her realise straight away that he wasn’t telling the truth.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked, looking up at him to try and work out what was going on. “Are we in trouble?” she added, glancing at Joe.
Her dad smiled a little at that, although it didn’t really look like a happy smile. “No, you’re not,” he said to them both. “Not with us anyway.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Amber asked herself worriedly as the two of them were led through into the living room. Joe’s Aunt Emma was sitting at the dinner table, and Amber noticed that she had the same oddly upset look that her dad did. It’s almost as if they’re scared of something, she thought as she looked from one to the other. Emma looks as if she’s been crying. But what do they have to be scared of?
Summer's Dark Waters Page 4
