“Are you alone?” I asked eventually, focussing on my feet.
“Yes.” He nodded. “Trust me, if it were possible to have brought everyone I would have done so. Well, maybe I’d have left Fred behind, since I know how much you hate him…”
I kicked him, but with not much force. “How is everyone, then?”
“Not good,” he admitted, digging his shoes into the gravel so that his swing stopped moving. “Living any great period of time without Beatrix proved to be harder than we thought. Tressa nearly ran herself into the ground trying to get everything done; cooking, cleaning, gardening, mending clothes, all these things we used to take for granted. We never ran out of supplies, thank goodness, but it’s a mess. The lawns are all overgrown, everything is filthy, and we are fighting all the time.”
I remembered visiting, how some of the details had changed. I was glad the picture in my mind was still of the estate in its full glory, not this wasted vision Avery was painting.
“Penny wouldn’t speak to me for about a month,” he recalled offhandedly, brow furrowed at the memory. “She went through a spat with pretty much everyone at some point. Tressa was unbearable for quite a while too, though we all let her off because of the stress she was putting herself through. Lucas basically lives in the library trying to figure a way out, and Fred just hovers about like a little cloud; sometimes raining, sometimes bright and cheerful.”
“Does he still…do they talk about me?” I choked.
“Fred? It’s getting him to shut up about you that’s the problem,” Avery muttered with a small smile. “Of course we haven’t forgotten you. Well, no less than you’ve forgotten us.”
I flinched at the not-so-subtle dig, guilt nearly overpowering sadness.
“That they can’t hold out much longer, is my point,” he finished. “Which is where we come along.”
“Do you know about the Others?” I inquired hoarsely, the vain part of me hoping he hadn’t.
“I think. Vaguely.”
So I told him absolutely everything. Unusually for him, he listened without once interrupting, and I could almost see him taking mental notes of what I was saying. Avery was the first person I’d come across from whom I didn’t have to hide anything, and it felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“So you can control these things?” he asked when I’d finished, eyes wide with excitement.
“Not very well, but yes.” I smiled proudly.
“I can Rip, but not very well either.” He chuckled. “So between us, if two halves make a whole, we have a pretty good gift.”
“You can?” I exclaimed, surprised. There was a lot which had gone on behind the scenes in Boundary, things I was just starting to understand.
“Not half as well as Penny. Or Tressa, for that matter.” At my astonishment, he continued, “She only figured it out about four months ago. Lucas and Fred are still, well, normal. Maybe they’re like you?”
Gosh, there were so many things I needed to say, to ask. I was a jumbled mixture of guilt, elation, and confusion. It didn’t feel real, and I was terrified that I’d wake up and find myself back in that hotel lobby, Andrew shaking me awake and telling me it was time to leave. The very idea made me feel sick. Now I had Avery back, I didn’t ever want to let him go.
“Your name is Sadler, by the way,” I blurted, worried that if I stayed mute for too long he’d get up and walk away. “Avery Sadler.”
He nodded slowly, but didn’t say anything. The chains on his swing were sticky, creaking with even the slightest movement. “And you said Penny was D’s sister?”
“Yes. Poor Penny.”
“Depends on how you look at it.” He shrugged. “I’m not entirely surprised; it was obvious they had some sort of connection.”
“They killed our parents, Avery,” I reminded him, listening to the rhythmic creaking of the swing. It was very hard not to completely break down again.
“No.” Avery gave me a funny look. “How could they? Assuming we were taken when we were infants, they couldn’t have been more than two years old themselves, according to your information.”
“Right.” Well, that wasn’t a very bright observation, Evelyn, I thought. Which meant Madon…but that notebook…
“I can’t tell if you’ve changed or not,” he said eventually. “On the outside, and maybe a bit on the inside—but I think deep down, you’re still the same you. That’s lucky. Not everyone escapes with so much.”
“Not even you?”
He just smiled.
After another bout of pensive silence, we began walking back into the city. I was still shivering and ‘stole’ Avery’s jacket. I wondered what I was going to do once we re-joined Andrew.
“You couldn’t have picked a location closer town?”
“I knew you’d be…ah, excited. I didn’t want to make a scene, and this place is usually abandoned.”
I digested that information slowly, and said, “Wait, how long have you been here?”
“A day. I’m still getting used to it.”
“Then how did you know about all this?” I gestured. “Who’s helping you? And how…how did you get out in the first place.”
Hands shoved into his pockets, Avery acted as if he hadn’t heard me, quickening his pace so that I had to skip to keep up. I grabbed his arm, pulling him back until he stopped.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“What did you do?” I snapped, staring right into his eyes. “How did you get out, Avery?”
He muttered something under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
“I made a deal with Madon, all right?” He shook me away in exasperation. “He couldn’t stay for more than a few minutes at a time inside the Boundary after you left, but he managed to… Oh, don’t look at me like that! It is what it is, and I’m here now.”
“You just left them there.”
“And who does that remind me of?”
“I didn’t have a choice!” I shouted.
“Didn’t you?” Avery was smiling, but without any humour. “Face it, Evelyn, we both did what we had to. Madon got me out, helped me adjust, and all I have to do is help him with something that won’t affect us at all. I’m learning things from him I’d never learn anywhere else, and once I’ve gathered enough information, you and I can rescue the rest of them. And,” he added when I began to interrupt, “correct me if I’m mistaken, but you were the one calling for a meeting with him only a short time ago?”
I glanced down at my hands, wishing for the umpteenth time that they’d stop shaking. This was all so overwhelming. It would be extremely hypocritical of me to begrudge Avery his freedom, but I was furious with him for not bargaining a way out for all of them. Still, the reality was that only the Farthings and Madon held any answers, and neither of them were exactly ‘perfect allies’.
“He called me here tonight, didn’t he? That wasn’t you?”
“Yeah, I assume so. He’s changed a lot, hasn’t he? Madon, I mean. He seems so—”
“Human?” I offered.
“Exactly. And desperate.” Avery laughed. “Makes a nice change.”
We began walking again. There was something aimless about it, as if neither of us really had any idea where we were going. Yet, somehow, I felt…happy. If Avery could leave Boundary, then there was a glimmer of hope that we could also save the others without incident. Together, we’d be able to do it; Avery was my key to escaping this dead end.
“Can you promise me something?” Avery said when we were nearly back at the hotel.
“Of course. What is it?”
“Don’t tell anyone about me. And when I say anyone, I mean it.” He was uncharacteristically serious. “Not even people you trust.”
I was confused. “But Andrew will want to know who you are?”
We stopped outside the hotel at last, quite some time after I’d left. The lights were all off, but that didn’t mean anything with the blackout.
Avery to
ok a step away from me. “I-I’m not coming with you, Evelyn. I can’t. I’ve promised Madon—”
“What?” I felt a familiar panic begin to rise.
“I owe him a favour now, that’s all. But he said that D—the Farthing twins—can’t know what happened, or they’ll…” He gestured. “I don’t know. Blow me up. Blow us all up.”
“Andrew can keep a secret.”
Avery hesitated, invisible in the darkness. “But if I come with you, won’t the Farthings—”
“I want nothing to do with them anymore,” I retorted. “You can’t just leave me!”
“But I’d forgotten how irritating you were,” he joked—at least I hoped he was joking—coming to stand next to me again. “Though I suppose sticking together might be the best thing. You’ve got to promise me that this Andrew won’t say anything to the Farthings, all right?”
“Of course. You’ll like him, he’s…well, he’s been kind to me.”
“I’m sure,” Avery said, in a tone that sounded too dry to be sincere.
“Be nice.”
He rolled his eyes and crossed his heart, then moved to open the doors into the hotel. I followed him inside, still unable to grasp that Avery was here, and that I would never have to worry about being misunderstood or abandoned again.
Chapter Twenty
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean exactly that.” The receptionist snapped her guest book shut, glaring at me over the wire rims of her glasses. “Gone. No longer here. Departed. I believe the French say disparu.”
“But he said—”
“My dear, what he said has no consequence. Your young man is no longer here, we are no longer accepting new guests, and so your presence is accomplishing nothing for either of us. Good night.”
She waited for me to leave. When I didn’t move she shuffled away from the desk, sucking loudly on her teeth in obvious irritation.
Andrew was gone. Judging by the clock, I’d been away for under two hours, yet he hadn’t waited for me. He’d left for the farm without leaving so much as a note, a hint, anything.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Avery, heart hammering. “Why didn’t he wait?”
“Sounds like a bit of a rubbish friend.”
“He’s not,” I shot back. “He’s probably just…”
My words fizzled into nothing.
There was nowhere else Andrew had a connection with in Gloucester, and certainly nowhere else that he might have gone to meet me. He wouldn’t have rushed off to deal with an emergency, as news just didn’t travel that fast from the country, yet why else would he disappear without telling me? Where else would he have gone?
“Evelyn?”
“Demitra’s flat,” I whispered. “It’s the only other place we ever went to. Maybe he left something behind. Maybe he thought I’d gone there.”
“You’re reaching,” Avery said, not unkindly. “Maybe he’s wandering around trying to find you? I mean, you left without telling him where you were going, and if he’s half the knight you make him out to be, I doubt he decided to sit around and just wait.”
But Andrew wasn’t stupid. Trying to find someone in a city, in the thick of blackout, would have been as effective as groping for peas in lentils whilst blindfolded. Like him, there were only two clear places I would have gone to anyway, here again, or the flat.
“Where are we going?” Avery skipped to catch up with me.
“The flat,” I said, picking up my pace. My feet were burning from so much walking in one night, the soles of my shoes wearing thin.
He stopped.
“Are you mad?”
“I need to make sure—”
“I can’t go with you,” Avery said, although he’d begun walking again. “And besides, if he forgot something there, he’ll be back at the hotel soon. This is stupid.”
She’ll come back. They always do.
Maybe I was being irrational, but the moment I’d realized Andrew was missing, a dread had settled into my bones that I couldn’t shake.
It will take three to save your friends. No more, no less.
Demitra and Deio needed me, one way or another. Within Boundary, they’d proven they had no problem with using our relationships to manipulate us. Andrew was my undisputed best friend in this world.
And if there was one thing life had taught me so far, it was that nothing was too far-fetched to be true.
“I still can’t come with you.” Avery peered up at the flat, hovering behind an unlit lamp post. “And I still think you’re being stupid.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I snapped. It was amazing how fast the high of seeing him had faded; it almost felt like we’d never been apart. Despite what he claimed, I decided he hadn’t changed much at all. “Stay outside if you want.”
He grumbled something unintelligible.
My hands were shaking, so it took several tries to insert the key into the lock. Exhausted, cold, and overwhelmed, trying to prepare for what I’d say to the twins proved to be impossible. With luck, they’d be asleep, and might not even notice me.
“Urgh, it reeks in here,” Avery muttered from directly behind me, raising a hand to cover his nose. “What is this? It smells like a stomach ache feels.”
“Grease. I thought you weren’t coming?”
“Yeah, well,” he wrinkled his nose, “thinking about it, I never did give a damn about Madon’s rules. And I don’t want to deal with Fred if you die due to my negligence.” He said it so casually, as though there was no question about us seeing him again.
“Okay. Just don’t go getting yourself hurt either.”
I went first up the stairs, wincing with each creak.
I’m not here to apologize. I’m not here to make amends. I want…
The door to the flat was already open. No lights glowed from within. It was silent, but not the peaceful sort; the kind of silence that set your ears ringing and made the room feel a hundred times smaller.
“They’re not here,” I whispered, not needing to double check. “Nobody’s here.”
“You sure they aren’t asleep?”
I didn’t answer, tiptoeing inside. It was too dark to make out even silhouettes of furniture, so after making sure the blackout blind was closed, I groped about for the light switch.
The overhead bulb flickered, once, twice, before casting a gloomy orange glow about the place. Immediately, it became apparent I was right.
The furniture was gone: the cabbage-rose settee, the bookshelves and their contents. The rug, the lampshade, even the dishes. The floorboards were marked with scratches as though the heavier furniture had been pushed a certain distance before its disappearance. Only a single mug remained, sitting on the kitchen countertops with an inch of greyish tea pooling in the bottom.
Avery exhaled. “Thank goodness.”
I whirled on him. “This isn’t right. Andrew vanishes, they vanish, and the flat is wiped clean…it’s—something has obviously—” I choked back the hysterics. “They’ve taken him, Avery, don’t you see?”
“No. All I see is an empty flat.”
The bedroom turned out to be vacant too, including that damning chest of drawers.
“But why would they take the furniture?” Avery asked from the sitting room, still sounding sceptical. “If I were to kidnap someone, taking the cutlery wouldn’t be my number one priority. You’d think it’d slow them down.”
“I don’t know,” I shouted, loud enough that he flinched. “Sorry. I just—I have a terrible feeling about this.”
“It’s strange, I’ll give you that.” He grinned. “Although I’ve seen stranger. Deep breath, Evelyn.”
I stood motionless in the doorway, watching dust mites flitter in and out of sight around the light bulb. For a moment, that was all I could register.
“I’ve got to call her.”
“Who?”
“Demitra. With the Others, like…” I swallowed. “Just to make sure.”
“From what y
ou’ve told me, that doesn’t sound like your best idea.” Avery sat down with his back to a wall and motioned for me to join him. “It’s gone midnight. Make a decision in the morning.”
“I can’t just go to sleep!”
“Sure you can.” He yawned. “Besides, if they did take your friend, you’ll soon hear about it. There’d be no point for them otherwise.”
I was past the point of tiredness by now, my eyes burning and my brain spinning and panicking and offering no practical advice. Avery, rare as it was, was right. So I curled up in a corner by the window, acutely away of every nail and splinter in the floorboards.
Avery is here. Andrew is not. Killers live in this room. There’s a war outside. You need three, you have two, and time is tick, tick, ticking.
“No water,” Avery muttered, turning the taps on and off again. Each turn let loose a screech. I cringed. “Can you stop?”
“Headache?”
I nodded and immediately regretted it. The room spun.
“There is tea.” He picked up the mug and sniffed it. “Want some?” When I didn’t reply, he shrugged and downed it in a single gulp, pulling a face. “That’s foul.”
Still sporting an expression as if he’d swallowed a bucket of maggots, Avery crossed the room and began to raise the blackout blind, washing the place with daylight.
“Why’d you do that for?” I whined, shielding my eyes.
“When was the last time you ate?”
The mere idea of food sent my stomach writhing. “I think…I think I had a pickled-onion sandwich yesterday morning.”
“Is there one of those grocery shops nearby?” He seemed proud of himself for remembering the correct term. “We could get some cereal or pastries.”
“No money or ration tickets. Anyway, no money.”
“Looks like we’re licking grease off the walls downstairs, then.”
I forced a smile. A quick glance proved there was no point in trying to straighten out my clothes, and I wasn’t even going to bother checking my hair. The side of my face was smarting, the shape of the wood grain imprinted into my cheek.
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