Barrier

by Mary Victoria Johnson

  Come on, please! Unlock the door!

  I realized I was shaking. A clammy sweat broke out on my arms—I felt exhausted. My mind was starting to spin.

  UNLOCK THE DOOR!

  I flooded all my nervous energy into that one final cry. At once, a static pressure rushed past me, increasing my dizziness until my head spun out of control and I collapsed. However, when my vision cleared again, I noticed new cracks had appeared in the plaster of the ceiling—and the bedroom door was open a tiny crack.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed, hurrying to my feet and bursting through the door.

  After all that energy, I have expected something much more fantastic than what I found on the other side. Two narrow beds sat at opposite walls, the blankets heaped in the middle all torn, along with the pillows, which had feathers spilling out. The small window was broken too, as was the light bulb, and the wooden panels had all but been ripped off the walls. Perhaps I had been expecting a massive book labelled SECRETS or something, but I was a bit disappointed at the sheer normality of it. Well, despite the fact it was in shambles. Had the Others just done this, or was it always in such disarray? If it was the former, I was done for. There was no way I’d be able to tidy it all up in time.

  Stop it, I chided myself. Focus. You don’t have time to worry.

  There really wasn’t anything unremarkable about the room, nothing, which was clearly suspicious. There was a wardrobe, but the skewed door revealed the contents to be but a few simple garments. The mattresses looked too thin to be much use at hiding anything. My eyes fell on a small bedside table sitting between the two beds—a wooden cube with three drawers that were, oddly enough, properly closed.

  Kneeling down, I tried the top drawer. It gave off a slight static shock, but apart from that, I managed to pull the entire thing out without resistance. I let the contents fall into my lap, heart in my mouth.

  It was all photographs, many smudged and even more cut out of newspapers, and they were of different people. I couldn’t imagine why the siblings had collected such a large amount of pictures of people: men, women, and children. They didn’t even come from this world, this layer. At least I didn’t think so. A few photos had hastily scrawled names, notes, or even addresses on the back, but most of it had been scribbled back out again so that I couldn’t make out the words.

  I sifted through to see if I recognized anyone, but they all remained perfect strangers to me. So I tried the second drawer.

  I found a notebook. It was the only object in there, as big as a textbook, spiral bound and containing thick pages, almost all of which had been written on. When I flipped it open, it became apparent that all it contained were names. Names, addresses… and a single word penned in bold capitals. They were the same words repeated over and over again for different people: RIPPER, SENSER, and ASSOCIATE. Nearly every name was crossed out, and by the looks of things, they were alphabetically organized.

  I flipped to the F section, scanning the page until I found the name I was looking for.

  Penny Farthing RIPPER Boundary.

  It wasn’t crossed out. Underneath, there were the names Bernard and Elisabeth Farthing, both crossed out, with the word ASSOCIATE by their names. I paged to the S section, heart starting to beat really quickly now.

  Evelyn Stuart SENSER accounted for.

  Not crossed out, but that wasn’t the thing that caught my eye.

  Robert and Elle Stuart ASSOCIATE Maidstone, Kent, crossed through.

  Crossed out—deceased. I wondered if their pictures were in the first drawer? I blinked back tears, then suddenly turned back to where I had seen Penny’s name in surprise.

  Beatrix Farrington RIPPER Boundary, crossed out, needless to say, as she was deceased, was written right above Madon Farrington RIPPER Unknown.

  I flipped through the pages for any other names I recognized, noting in dull surprise that nearly every single name was crossed off, enough so that the ones that remained stood out quite blatantly. Fred Ashton only had a question mark by his name, as did Lucas Reading, and Tressa McGinley. Avery Sadler was marked as a RIPPER. Around their names, there was a list of people from their families, all crossed through.

  I was transfixed. Who else hadn’t been crossed out? Almost everyone still alive was either a SENSER or ASSOCIATE.

  Harriet Pearson SENSER, Frome, Som.

  Anna Pearson ASSOCIATE Frome, Som.

  Julia Pearson ASSOCIATE Frome, Som.

  Andrew Pearson ASSOCIATE accounted for.

  Harriet and her family. They had Harriet and the Pearsons written in here amidst all these other gifted, and mostly dead people. Was this because of Harriet’s gift, or because I’d involved them in this mess.

  Dizzily, I sat back to absorb this information. Demitra and Deio had about a hundred people organized in this neat notebook, and had classified them according to their powers, and crossed out the ones who were dead.

  As I flipped through the pages, a single note fluttered down.

  Dear Mrs Lachlan,

  It has come to our attention that your promised payment of £400 is still outstanding. Considering that over six months have passed since the job was completed, we are understandably angered by this breech in… People are starting to wonder why two thirteen-year-olds are alone, and we need the money to find a new place… We have spared you from the unfortunate incidents of a few years ago because of this agreement, and without your cooperation, steps will be taken. We will come for you. One week until…

  Sincerely,

  Deio and Demitra Farthing

  I scanned it over several times. It was water damaged, so some of the ink had smudged, but the remaining fragments seemed to have enough weight of their own. A quick flip through the notebook to look for the name revealed that Shannon Lachlan RIPPER London had been crossed off.

  I opened the third and final drawer and found a selection of different guns, knives, and other lethal weapons.

  Mercenaries. The word came immediately to mind, a term they’d used during my literature class in school. Hired killers. They weren’t getting the names out of nowhere, and they weren’t listing them without a reason. They must have someone directing them. I knew they hadn’t personally committed every murder in the book, since Beatrix’s death was most definitely at Madon’s hands, but I would bet that they’d carried out a good few of them. They were seventeen years old, and they were killers. I thought back to the alleyway and how Demitra had attacked those women…the Whatley’s.

  I dropped the book as if it had bitten me, feeling really quite sick now. I rushed to the window and threw it open, vomiting into the street below, everything piecing together with devastating clarity.

  Bella Whatley and her sisters, the ones who had attacked us in the streets that eventful night, had been avenging their father’s death. Their father, who if I recalled from the notebook correctly, had RIPPER by his name. Demitra and Deio were going after people who could Rip, or who had some unique connection to the Others, and they were squashing the problem by killing them. Of this I was now certain.

  That would mean my family, all our families, had died because they were gifted. For some reason, with us, they hadn’t followed the regular pattern and disposed of us; we had ended up in Boundary.

  “Evelyn?”

  I dropped the notebook. Whipping around, I saw Deio and Demitra standing in the flat doorway, their faces holding the same expression of horrified disbelief as mine must do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “How did you get in?” Deio spoke first, shrugging off his coat and walking over to where I was standing frozen. He frowned at his sister. “Didn’t you lock the door?”

  She nodded, her face pale. “And I sealed the drawers.”

  “Clearly you didn’t.”

  “I did!” Demitra insisted shrilly, snapping out of her shock and coming to join us. “I promise.”

  Deio gave her a very condescending look. “You don’t need to lie to me.”

  “I’m not!”
r />   My eyes darted between them, the panic having calmed back down. My heart was still hammering, but a newer, stronger emotion was rapidly overcoming me: anger.

  “The door was locked, actually,” I said, and they both turned their attention back to me. “The Others unlocked it for me.”

  Colour worked its way back into Demitra’s cheeks at an alarming speed. Deio, though, seemed less fazed.

  “They did some redecorating by the looks of things,” he said, peering past me into the wreckage. “I have to say, I’m impressed you managed it, Evelyn. That’s promising.”

  “Impressed?” Demitra said incredulously, looking between Deio and me. “Impressed? I’ve only just told her to keep her nose out of our business, and then she goes and does something like this!”

  The photographs were scattered over the floor, a hundred faces that were now reduced to nothing more than memories in a drawer. The notebook was open to a random page full of stricken names and the letters, which had condemned them, including those of my family.

  “You’re killers.” I spoke with impressive calmness, considering the hatred beginning to boil within me. “These people didn’t do anything. They were like you and me—different—but you killed them anyway. You or others killed my family too.”

  Demitra snatched the notebook away from me, her entire body quivering. “Stop it, Evelyn. You don’t know—”

  “That’s where you keep sneaking off to, isn’t it?” I pushed. “To track down those remaining people? Who’s paying you now? Madon?”

  “He’s on our hit list, if you hadn’t noticed,” Deio interjected, quite conversationally. “We’re not paid anymore. That system wasn’t working out.” He chuckled, as if he’d said something funny.

  Demitra wasn’t laughing. Her grey eyes were stormy, flashing with a fury that seemed to match mine. It wasn’t directed at her brother, though.

  “You need to tell me what’s going on, or I’m leaving.” I folded my arms.

  “See, this is exactly what I told you would happen!” Demitra said shrilly. “How are we going to help your friends then, huh?”

  “Help them,” I scoffed, standing up and glaring at her. “We’re all on your list! I don’t know why saving my friends is so important to you, but it probably isn’t good for the rest of us.” Then it hit me. “You were barred from entering when I won, weren’t you? If you bring the rest of us back into this world, you’ll be able to knock six more names off your list once and for all.”

  My throat was tight. Wind from the broken window gusted in, picking up the photographs and tossing them around the room, taunting us with dead faces.

  “Penny is our sister,” Demitra growled through her clenched teeth. “Why would we—”

  “Why would you want to kill Harriet Pearson?” I interrupted. “Why would we six be so special that you’d lock us away rather than kill us like the rest? I don’t know, Demitra, but I do know that I won’t work with you anymore.”

  I had to get out of here, out of this room, away from them. I had to find Andrew and tell him his family was in danger.

  “We were barely two years old when you were put in Boundary,” Demitra snapped. “How could we have locked you away or killed your families?”

  I didn’t want to listen to her. My eyes and head were swimming. I’d always known that the truth behind our past was darker than I’d care to admit, but I hadn’t expected it to be this brutal. I felt like an idiot for having blindly followed them for so long.

  I skirted around her to the door, my heart beating so quickly I thought it would fail me.

  Demitra shouted at me to stop, grabbing at my arm, but I shook her off.

  Wham. The door slammed shut with such force that the cracks in the ceiling spread further. Demitra’s palm was outstretched, her eyes on fire. She could move the door, but she couldn’t lock it, and I pushed it back open again.

  “You can’t leave!” she shrieked, as one by one the books from the shelf flew at my head.

  I ducked, too wound up to focus on calling the Others to help me. So I ran, crouched over and with my hands on my head to shield it from the objects being hurled at me. Vaguely, I was aware of an odd pressure beginning to build up, of something strange whispering fuzzily in my ear…

  Then pain hit me. ‘Hit’ was a bit of an understatement. This was more of a stab, and for a moment, I thought Demitra had thrown one of the knives that were in the lower drawer. It wrenched through my body, excruciatingly painful, and I stumbled over. It wasn’t in one place, but all over. My arms, my legs, my torso, my head…they were all hurting. I couldn’t see, and all I was aware of was someone screaming and the feeling of my body burning… Suddenly, I wasn’t in the flat in Gloucester anymore, but in a manor house, crying because I’d refused to come to dinner one day and the Master had caught me.

  “Demitra, stop it!” Someone else shouted.

  “Get off me!”

  “You’re going to wreck the barrier even more. It isn’t worth it.”

  As quickly as it had come, the agony stopped. I lay on the floor, gasping and trying to shake off one terrible memory.

  “Evelyn?” Fred is standing over me, uncertain. “Are you okay?”

  “Is He gone?” I choke, trying and failing not to cry. “I was only…I didn’t feel very well, and I…”

  “It’s okay.” Fred offers a hand, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the Master really has gone. “Remember what Lucas says—it’s all in your head.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it,” I sniff.

  “Don’t feel, then,” Tressa says, marching up behind us. “Don’t let Him win.”

  Grabbing onto the side of the settee for support, I hauled myself to my feet. Deio was physical restraining Demitra. The flat looked like a bomb had gone off inside of it, every window had shattered and smoke billowed through the doorway. I could hear the landlord shouting.

  Without hesitating further, I ran out the door. When I got halfway down the stairs, now clogged with a greasy smoke, I chanced a look back.

  Demitra was leaning against the doorframe, eyes closed, and body shaking convulsively as if she were crying; but there was no trace of tears. Deio was just standing there, eyes glued on me. His lips were moving, whispering to his twin.

  He mouthed the words. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back. They all come back.”

  “Andrew Pearson?” I asked walking into the cheap inn were Andrew was staying.

  “He left a few minutes ago. Looking for a phone box, I think.”

  “Where would I find one of those, then, please?”

  The innkeeper drew me a quick map on the back of a napkin, I thanked her, and left. I had also inquired about any vacancies, deciding that returning to the flat probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but they were full. Most rooms were being used to house people displaced by the bombs in London, but since Andrew was a ‘wounded veteran’, she had made an exception.

  Outside, it was a regular November day, overcast and chilly, but not raining.

  I tried to summon some positivity, but couldn’t. There was something heavy sitting in my stomach, something that refused to disappear. For the first time, I was questioning whether I was doing the right thing. Perhaps in Boundary, sheltered from this world of murderers and violence, they were safer, happier…

  Like you were? a snide voice in my head asked. When all you cared about was having a matching set of jewellery for dinner? When your entire world was no bigger than a single house and the forest around it, when everybody knew who you were and cared about you?

  People rushed past me, no one giving me a second glance. Even now there were no boundaries separating us, we were still worlds apart.

  I leant against a derelict building, head in my hands, wondering why I couldn’t cry.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The phone box had peeling, faded red paint, and was panelled on all sides with mucky glass. Inside I could just make out the phone and black box, which had a couple of buttons. I’d neve
r used one myself. It looked scary. Andrew was speaking into the handset.

  “I don’t…it isn’t as easy as that. I’m sorry. Come on, Mum, don’t hang up, I—” He suddenly frowned and replaced the handset.

  “Hello,” I said, opening the door, and he jumped.

  “Evelyn, are you all right? You look…” He trailed off, unable to find the right word.

  “They’re assassins, Andrew,” I said simply. “They kill people like me. Like Harriet. People who can Rip, or who are in tune with the Others, as well as their families. And Penny is their sister, I was right about that. I confronted them, and…I can’t go back to them, Andrew, I can’t.”

  Andrew had an odd look on his face. It seemed somewhere between relief and anger. “Thank God. But Harriet…”

  I didn’t know what to say. If the Farthings decided to come for Harriet and her sister, I couldn’t think of anything we would be able to do to save them. My only hope was that by running away, they’d have more important things to think about.

  We moved out of the telephone box, walking down the street in no particular direction.

  “That was Mum on the phone,” Andrew said eventually. “I had to tell her I was okay. She was about to rally the entire county into a search party. She thinks I’ve run away with you—I’ve never heard her so furious.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He folded his arms, exhaling so that his breath fogged up the air. “She wants me back for Christmas. It’s the first of December in less than a week.”

  “Are you going to go?” I asked dully.

  We rounded a corner. The general store had a long queue outside it, packed with women and old men sifting through their ration books. Where was I going to eat now? I hadn’t any idea how the system worked.

  Andrew avoided looking at me. “I don’t know what else to do, Evelyn. We’ve found Deio and Demitra, but obviously they aren’t going to help you. You can’t get your friends out of Boundary by yourself, but I can’t afford to stay here much longer. Mum needs me. And yet…”