Barrier

by Mary Victoria Johnson

  What People are Saying about BOUNDARY (Book 1)

  For teenagers and adults who love fantasy, this is an interesting and original idea.

  Trish Palmer, Bluewolf Reviews

  A captivating, atmospheric novel full of twists and turns… Gripping and suspenseful!

  Andrew Cairns, author of The Witch’s List

  You won’t be able to put it down for long! This is a very well thought-out plot… The action, suspense, and intrigue were outstanding. This was like no other book I have read before, crossing many genres.

  Lu Ann Worley, Rockin’ Book Reviews

  Each page keeps readers glued and wondering just what will happen next… An outstanding novel.

  Fran Lewis, MJ Magazine

  A thoroughly engrossing tale of alternate worlds that will keep you guessing until the end!

  Annette Oppenlander, author of ‘Escape From the Past’

  A gripping story of captivity, friendship, and betrayal.

  Alex Woolf, author of Soul Shadows

  A magical adventure I didn’t want to put down! Full of mysterious twists and turns, with a cast of teenagers who capture you within their strange, emotional world. Sometimes scary, sometimes funny and often thrilling, this story kept me guessing the whole time and I can’t wait for the next one!

  Nicole Leigh West, author of The Gypsy Trail

  First published by Lodestone Books, 2018

  Lodestone Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., No. 3 East St., Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9EE, UK

  office1@jhpbooks.net

  www.johnhuntpublishing.com

  For distributor details and how to order please visit the ‘Ordering’ section on our website.

  Text copyright: Mary Victoria Johnson 2017

  ISBN: 978 1 78535 428 1

  978 1 78535 429 8 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931747

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

  The rights of Mary Victoria Johnson as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Design: Stuart Davies

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

  We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

  To Clara

  I’m proud to be your sister too. Keep shining!

  Other Books by Mary Victoria Johnson

  Boundary, The Other Horizons Trilogy – Book One

  (Lodestone Books, 978-1-78279-918-4)

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  There were few things that I was certain of these days, but this was one of them: trains were a nightmare. The headmistress of the school, whom I had accidentally kept referring to as ‘Master’, had personally escorted me to the station in fear of my reaction, anticipating the worst and getting it. I’d thrown a screaming fit when the engine had come puffing through the station, spewing great clouds of plumed smoke everywhere so that I could barely see nor breathe, wheels shrieking in protest as they skidded to a halt, people jostling left and right.

  People. Another thing I didn’t like. I’d only ever met eight others before escaping Boundary, and suddenly having to cope with hundreds was disorienting to say the least. Everywhere I went there was a never-ending wave of new faces, new voices, and new names. The oddest part was that I was as much a stranger to them as they were to me. I’d never been a stranger to anybody before. There was something extremely lonely about being unknown, and about speaking to people who hadn’t the slightest idea who I was, and would forget me by the next day.

  The school had helped, to begin with. Nobody believed my story of Boundary, and I learned quickly enough that trying to persuade everyone that I was telling the truth got me nowhere. Eventually, they decided the best thing to do would be to send me to a boarding school, until I managed to ‘unscramble my poor, confused mind’. That was how they phrased it. Even in this world, people regarded me as an idiot.

  The girls had initially been very nice to me, but after a while, they took my constant ignorance as a plea for attention and began turning away. Anyway, anybody who woke up almost every night screaming about a fire and a non-existent boy named Fred wasn’t considered socially desirable.

  Then one day, the headmistress told me that the school was being shut down due to lack of funding, or something to that effect. I wasn’t eighteen, and clearly not capable of living alone. I had no family. She told me I was to live with her sister-in-law on a farm, not too far from the school. That had been that. I’d packed my spare dress and caught the next train out of town, still not being sure what a farm was, or what one was expected to do on it.

  People. People. People. Everywhere. Noise, noise, people, strange smells, people, noise…it never went away.

  I’d been lucky enough to find a seat by the window, enabling me to turn away from the crowds and chaos of the third-class carriage to focus on the scenery outside.

  Countryside whizzed past me at incredible speeds, a blur of open fields, hedges, country roads, and clumps of trees. We had passed few towns since departure, and every time we did, I purposely turned my head away. It scared me too much, thinking about just how many people there were out there.

  I was fascinated by the country, which served as a good distractor. In the boarding school, it had been easy to pretend the outside didn’t exist and that I was simply living in another version of Boundary with lots more girls and no Ripping. Ripping was a form of magic, which I did not care to remember, from my old life at Boundary. I hadn’t ventured farther than the school grounds whenever I could help it, only visiting the town itself once or twice in all my time there.

  The countryside was different from the town. Though I was still irrationally afraid of all animals, I found the sprawling fields and rolling hills mesmerizing. It was hard to believe that the land carried on for farther than one could walk, with the restriction being only how far you were willing to go. No boundaries. Nothing to keep you locked into one place—one estate.

  Boundary. Penny, Tressa, Avery, Lucas, and Fred. Missing them was a physical ache in my chest, and not purely one of sadness, but one of guilt. Guilt that I’d escaped in Penny’s place, and that I could do nothing to help my five friends. Guilt that here I was, standing on a train speeding miles and miles away from them.

  The train blew its whistle, jolting me right out of my thoughts, slowing down into a small station. My good mood evaporated instantaneously. Now I’d have to navigate the hordes of people and remember what it was I was supposed to do, and then endure a car ride.

  Lovely.

  The conductor ushered the small crowd of departing passengers towards a door, where we stepped down a single step onto the platform. A few people hopped on, and what seemed like mere minutes later, steam filled the station and the train began chugging onward again.

  For a moment, I stood amongst the moving people in a daze, watching them rush around me. The headmistress had given me clear instructions: go to the main gate and ask for Julia Pearson if I couldn’t find anyone waiting. But what was a main gate?

  Just like that, I found myself alone on a deserted village station, little suitcase in hand and tears embarrassingly blurring my eyesight. I didn’t like being left alone without someone telling me what to do.

  There was a fence on the other side of the railway tracks, this world’s idea of a boundary. On the other side, behind me, there was a brick wall. An array of poster
s that were plastered to it caught my eye, and I began walking closer.

  “Miss?” A young boy, no more than fourteen, dressed in a porter’s uniform came hurrying towards me. “You need a hand with anything?”

  “The main gate,” I said immediately, my voice coming out sounding slightly unsure of what I was saying.

  “Just this way, Miss. You wouldn’t happen to be Evelyn, would you? Only there’s a woman asking after you at the front, says her name is Julia Pearson.”

  I nodded, relieved and tore myself away from the posters to follow him. I’d seen most of them before anyway. There was no escaping the war.

  War. That, as it turned out, was the major setback of this new age.

  Chapter Two

  “…So I says, ‘You can go after your glory all you want, Billy, but the real important stuff is done right ’ere at home.’ ’E went anyway of course, stubborn mule like ’e is, but Mama said that in ’er eyes, we was both doin’ as noble a thing as we could. ‘Land service,’ she says, ‘is bloody ’ard work but it’s what keeps England chuggin’ away durin’ these times. Nothin’ more respectable for a girl to do.’ Billy can argue all ’e wants, but there ain’t no denyin’ it.”

  “Kitty Rogers,” Julia Pearson said through clenched teeth, knuckles white against the steering wheel. “If you don’t stop this ridiculous nattering, then when Evelyn vomits again, I shall personally ensure it is all over you. For the love of God, shut up.”

  “Sorry, Aunt Jule.” Kitty beamed before turning to gawp out of the dirt-encrusted window.

  Julia was a thirty-something woman who looked about ten years older. She was robust woman with almost colourless brown hair pulled into a knot at the base of her freckled neck. Mr Pearson, she hastened to inform me, was attending a farmer’s conference, and would be back to help us soon.

  There had been another girl in the car. Kitty Rogers, niece of Julia, easily surpassed Avery as the most irritating person I had ever met. Her accent was a different one from the country drawl altogether, much rougher and harder to understand. All I knew was that she came from some large city, and like me, would be working on the farm. She must have been around my age, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, with a round, cheery face and chestnut hair curled in exactly the way I disliked. She was very tall and somewhat lanky, but unlike the girls at school, didn’t seem to mind that I was obviously prettier. A quick appraisal of me hadn’t been followed by the usual glare of envy, but rather a friendly crooked-tooth grin. If she stopped talking, I might have also found myself liking Kitty.

  As for the car…it lacked any of the smoothness I had grown to enjoy with trains, constantly spluttering and bouncing over every pothole and tipping around every horrendous country lane corner. Unlike the vehicle that had driven me from the school to the station, this one lacked an overhead roof, making it difficult to hear properly over the howling wind. The windows and visor stopped it from ruining my hair completely, but I was still very uncomfortable, and more than a little green. Twice Julia had stopped the car so I could be sick in the bushes.

  “So is it true that we ain’t supposed to ask you about where you came from before the school…your family, or anythin’ about your past?” Kitty asked me, turning back around in her seat to face me. “That’s what it said in the letter your ’eadmistress sent. Bit strange, I thought, but then people do all kinds of undercover stuff nowadays.”

  I blew my nose delicately so that I wouldn’t have to reply. Unfortunately, even though I fussed for much longer than was necessary, Kitty was still waiting for me to answer.

  “It’s nothing like that.” I sighed, feeling the bile rise in my throat as we skidded around another bend. “Honestly, you’d be disappointed.”

  “Nah, I’m always game for a story.” She grinned. “So is it like, you can’t tell, or you don’t want to?”

  “Both,” I replied truthfully. Even someone as open-minded as Kitty couldn’t possibly comprehend what Boundary had been without thinking me crazy. I was only glad the headmistress had taken the time to write that letter.

  “Maybe one day you’ll have to let me in on it,” she suggested. “Though I warn you, I ain’t good at keepin’ secrets. Tell me, an’ everyone will know. There was this one time where my sister asked me not to tell this boy she loved ’im, but I just couldn’t hold it in when ’e came around and anyway, to cut a long story short, she wouldn’t talk to me for days, an’ even when he asked ’er out she said no out of stubbornness. D’you have anyone special you’re leavin’?”

  “No,” I replied, much too quickly.

  Julia flicked me a sympathetic look in the mirror, probably assuming that I’d fallen for a dashing young man at school who had left me for the army, and I was too upset to talk. I wasn’t going to correct her.

  I leaned my forehead against the door, and then pulled away as the intense vibrations increased my headache. I wanted nothing more than for the torture to stop. What was wrong with walking, anyway? Too old-fashioned?

  “I’m surprised.” Kitty cocked an eyebrow with a playful smile. “Pretty thing like you.”

  “Tell me about the farm,” I suggested, eyeing my feet with intense concentration, finding that if I focused on something hard enough the motion sickness subsided slightly.

  “Well, I’ve only been ’ere a couple o’ times as a kid,” she began, enthusiastic now I had actually asked her to speak instead of giving abrupt answers. “But it’s really quite lovely. Not too big, which is lucky for us since we only got mostly girls workin’, but still lovely. When I was little, we used to…”

  I closed my ears to her. Overhead, a flock of birds soared up against the blue October sky, as graceful and effortless as the clouds themselves. It was relaxing watching them—until the car swerved around another tight bend and I lost them over the skeletal branches of the overhanging trees. I gasped suddenly, and was forced to hang out of the side of the car to heave, but nothing came out as my stomach was already empty.

  “You all right, Ev?” Kitty patted my back.

  “Evelyn,” I corrected weakly, embarrassed.

  “Don’t like shortened names, then? That’s all right. I hated it when Billy called me Kit. Sounds like a boy’s name, don’t it?”

  “We’re here!” Julia announced, turning sharply up a dusty track, then throwing on the brakes and opening the door. “Home sweet home.”

  When my feet first made contact with the ground, they felt as if they were made of jelly. I took a few shaky steps and nearly fell, vowing never to travel by car ever, ever, ever again.

  “Everyone!” Kitty shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Come meet Evelyn!”

  My eyes widened in shock. My hair was messed up by the wind, cheeks blotchy, blouse dusty, and headache ruthless, so much for good first impressions.

  To calm my nerves, I looked at the house itself. It was smaller than the various barns I could see dotting the sprawling landscape, with thick, whitewashed walls and a higgledy-piggledy roof that seemed to be composed of slate simply chucked on by children. The windows were covered in Xs made of tape, for whatever reason, and the air stunk of animals.

  “Mummy!” voices called from inside, as shrilly cheerful as Kitty’s without the city accent.

  Several shapes emerged from the dust, of all shapes and sizes. I nodded shyly at the seven figures that were staring at me with overt curiosity.

  Julia gave them each a hug, and then turned to me taking my elbow and pulling me forwards to meet them.

  “I’m James,” a gap-toothed boy announced, extending a hand for me to shake. He had Julia’s flat hair colour, but his eyes were much brighter. “I’m glad you’re here, ’cause it’s my birthday next week and I want lots of people here. I’m going to be ten!”

  I flashed a wan smile of congratulations, and then Julia dragged me on to the next people.

  Two girls, about fourteen or fifteen (twins I guessed), inspected me cautiously. One was noticeably taller, with widely spaced brows and a pretty
, fair complexion. The other had a curvier figure, but plainer looks, and curly brown hair falling in waves down to her waist.

  The taller girl spoke first. “Hi. I’m Anna. This here is Harriet, but don’t expect her to talk too much, she’s painfully shy. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Harriet shot her sister a dirty look, crossed her arms and blushed.

  Next I was introduced to three older men: Pat, Gregory, and Charlie, who was Julia’s father.

  “We’re the only farmhands left now,” he explained in a loud whisper, as if letting me into a secret. “Peter, Robbie, Jack, Douglas…all gone to fight.”

  They weren’t, however, the only men there.

  “Andrew.” The boy—well, almost a man, really—grinned, eyes scanning my face in slight amusement. “The big brother.”

  I nodded, confused. I had been under the impression all the fit males had gone to enlist in the army, yet here was this young man who couldn’t have been more than nineteen.

  Freckles dusted his face, painting him as one of Julia’s children. His sandy hair blew in front of his green, laughing eyes. Strong looking, he had the build of a worker, and features that were almost handsome—the picture of a model soldier.

  “It’s going to be hard without the boys, but we’ll manage.” Julia smiled, as we all turned to go inside. “Thank you ever so much for volunteering to help—you and Kitty both. Because we’re not a proper—I mean, big—farm, they tend to overlook us when recruiting.”

  I wasn’t listening. Andrew, chatting in a low voice to Anna, was walking in a very peculiar fashion, as if one leg kept getting stuck on the ground and was weighing him down—a definite and severe limp.

  “What’s wrong with Andrew?”

  I felt Julia’s arm tense, but her smile did not waver as she answered, “He had an accident about a year ago. Nearly lost his leg, though to be brutally honest, I can’t say I’m not relieved to have one of my sons home from this war. Just…don’t bring it up around him. It’s a touchy subject.”