Adam tossed the magazine back on to the bedside table and stood staring at the floor. His fists were clenched at his sides. “Nobody’s done anything. We’re just different, OK?”
Rachel lay back on the bed and turned away from her brother. Closed her eyes. “Yeah, different,” she said.
They stayed as they were for another minute, the silence only broken by the artificial, ambient sound of night-time New York and the distant hum of machinery from somewhere far beneath them. Finally, Adam marched across to the door and opened it.
He turned in the doorway. “So this is the way it’s going to be? You’re going to be … difficult?”
Rachel didn’t bother to open her eyes. “One of us has to be.”
“Yeah, and it’s always you.”
“Can’t you hear him?” Rachel asked.
“Hear who?”
“Gabriel.”
Adam’s voice was thick with derision. “That’s another good thing about this place. I haven’t heard from him since we got here. If you ask me, we’re better off protected from him.”
“You’re not listening.”
“I’m not interested!”
Rachel’s fingers tightened round the edge of her duvet. She wanted to jump up and slap her brother hard. She held her breath and lay still until she heard the door close.
Adam was still angry when he walked into Laura’s office a few minutes later. Laura was at her computer. She turned to look at him, taking off the wire-rimmed glasses she wore to read.
“Any luck?”
Adam shook his head, feeling himself blush. He thought Laura looked beautiful without her glasses. “I did my best.”
“Don’t worry.”
“She’s just being stupid.”
Laura summoned a smile. “It’s going to take her a little longer than you to settle, that’s all.”
“She’s the stubborn one, always has been.”
“She’s very bright,” Laura said. “Kids like you usually are. She’ll figure out what’s best eventually.”
Adam grunted; he wasn’t sure. His eyes drifted towards Laura’s computer screen. There were lines of data down one side, some kind of map on the other. Laura cleared her throat and quickly hit a button which replaced the desktop with a screensaver image of an arid Australian landscape: the vast, flat-topped mountain known as Uluru.
“I think you should go and get some sleep.”
Adam nodded. The argument with Rachel had left him feeling wrung out and ready to drop. “I’ll try again tomorrow,” he said. “See if I can bring her round.”
“Probably best to leave it a day or two,” Laura said. “But thanks. And thanks for trying…”
When Adam had gone, Laura switched on a monitor mounted on the wall of her office. She stared at the CCTV image fed from the new, hidden camera in Rachel’s room: the picture of a girl curled up on her bed, legs pulled up, turned in on herself. Laura adjusted the volume and listened to the slow, steady sound of Rachel’s breathing.
After a minute, Laura went back to her laptop; back to the work which had occupied the best part of her life for almost ten years. She stared at the maps and the graphs, the analysis of a hundred sacred archaeological sites. The results of the tests on Rachel and Adam, Morag and Duncan, and others. She tried to concentrate, but she wouldn’t get any more useful work done tonight.
She hoped more than anything that what she’d told Adam was true. She prayed that Rachel would become … easier to deal with.
She did not like to think about what might happen otherwise.
Rachel lay in her room and thought about the fight with Adam. They had always fought, same as any other brother and sister, but not like this. Not about anything this important. More than anything, she wished her mother was there to sort things out, but Rachel knew she was going to have do it on her own.
She opened her mind and waited for Gabriel’s voice. She needed his guidance now more than ever: his reassurance.
When the voice came, it was no more than a whisper, from lips that she could almost feel pressed close to her ear.
It told her to sleep.
Rachel falls down, down, down through the night sky, tumbling through the air and falling silently into the inky water. Neither cold, nor warm, but somewhere near her own body temperature, it feels painless as the water invades her ears and nostrils, pours into her throat: becomes part of her. She is pleased to find that she does not panic as she drowns, that she is almost comforted as the peaty water suffocates her. Yet she is not dying, she is becoming one with the soft water which pulls her, like a returning mermaid, towards the two pale orbs of light that shimmer deep in the lake.
Rachel kicks and swims, moving effortlessly deeper and deeper, closer to the twin lights and to the silvery shape from which they shine. A car balances on an underwater ledge, teetering over a deep abyss that falls away into a cold, bottomless dark.
Closer now, green ribbons of frilly weed dance slowly in front of her eyes, part concealing the rubbery shape of the diver, his legs kicking behind him, frog-like, as he struggles to pull something through the car’s open window. Then, hand in hand, two small bodies wriggle free like fish from a net, and float upwards, coaxed and guided towards the surface by the beam of the diver’s torch.
Closer still, and the torchbeam searches for something else…
A woman’s face, her hair swirling about her cheeks; the water inside the car, pink with her husband’s blood; her white palms banging helplessly at the window of the locked door.
Don’t worry, Rachel thinks, swimming close to the window and pressing her hands to the glass, signing to the woman. I am here. Help is here.
Then the horror: the terrible lurch as the car pitches forward, is levered forward by the two, glass-faced frogmen who push it over the edge. Rachel holds on tight to the door handle as the car suddenly slips. She is pulled down with it, unable to do anything but watch as the woman’s face smashes into the glass. The woman’s eyes open wide in terror, then she falls back as though resigned to her watery death.
And Rachel lets go; the sleek, silver flank of the car slipping past her. She floats up, watching the pale lights become paler still as they go down, down, down…
The bed was soaking wet.
Rachel kicked off the soggy blanket and felt her pyjama bottoms and T-shirt. They were soaked as well, as though she really had been swimming. She could not go back to sleep like this, could not stay in bed at all. She would need to sleep somewhere else, get herself a hot bath and change her clothes.
Rachel climbed out of bed and immediately felt shivery. She was coming down with something, that was it. That was what the horrible dreams and the night sweats were about. That was why she could not gather her thoughts. She was feverish.
She tried to switch on a light, but nothing seemed to be working. Perhaps the electricity supply was switched off at a certain time. She wrapped a towelling bathrobe round her damp shoulders and sat in the armchair, wondering what to do with herself. She drew her knees up but was unable to get comfortable, so she got up again and began wandering aimlessly around the room, bumping into things.
Rachel stood in front of the window and drew back the curtain. She stared out at the night sky. Fresh air would help, she thought. Being a city kid she was no great fan of open windows. In her experience, the air they let in was dirtier than the air they let out but, staring at the starry blue-black sky, she craved a lungful of crisp night air, to clear her head of this fuzzy feeling. To clear it of the horrifying images from her dream. She fiddled with the catch and slid the window open, but found no change in air temperature at all, nor any hint of a breeze.
God, she was stupid!
She knew that it was all just an illusion. That the city, the skyline, the night sky were nothing more than a projection on a continuous loop that changed according to the time of day. It might not even be night-time at all. Delirious, Rachel began to speculate. Maybe they were just being told that it was night-time
, so that they would be more disorientated; so that they could be more easily controlled and observed, like specimens in a laboratory.
Rachel felt a sudden fury at the deception. She needed to get out. She would get past the screen and see exactly what was on the other side of the window and out in the world beyond.
She would breathe fresh air.
She stood on a chair and wrenched the blocked-up webcam out by its roots. Its red eye died instantly. Climbing down, Rachel grabbed a shoe and smashed the heel hard into the centre of the plasma screen, which flashed and went black. Her hands felt round the edge of the screen and she tried to wrench it from the wall. She found a wooden coat-hanger and wedged it into the top corner of the screen and levered the box forward. There was a sudden “crunch” as the screws gave and the screen was left dangling from the wall, wires curling from its back. Rachel pulled it to the floor, revealing a wall of solid breezeblocks.
She punched the wall, hurting her hand. She stamped on the already dead screen, cursing her own stupidity: why had she even thought there might be a window behind the screen? For all she knew, she might be fifty feet underground.
She was suffocating. She needed to get out. Now.
Rachel stumbled into the corridor, which was lit by dim night-lights that threw yellowish puddles of light every few metres. She paused outside her brother’s door. Their argument had been brewing for days. Ever since she’d mentioned Gabriel, every time she’d tried to connect with his mind, she’d felt him resist; mentally, he was turning his back on her, putting up a barrier.
She reached for the door handle and stopped. He would almost certainly be asleep. Even if she woke him up, he would try to talk her out of any action.
Rachel continued on alone, padding along the corridor, turning left then right, towards Laura Sullivan’s office. As she approached, she hugged the wall, seeing the glow of Laura’s laptop casting shadows on the open door. Laura must be working late. Rachel sidled along to the door as quietly as she could, not really sure whether she was trying to evade Laura, or if she needed to talk to her. She peered in and saw that Laura was not in her office anyway. The familiar image of Uluru on Laura’s screensaver glowed like a red beacon in the darkened room.
Rachel stepped in, instinctively closing the door behind her. She glanced up at the webcam monitor but saw only interference on the screen. It was not surprising, considering the damage she’d done to the camera. Perhaps Laura had gone to investigate, Rachel thought. She could be back at any moment…
Rachel walked over to the desk and touched the keypad. Uluru evaporated, revealing an open document. Rachel stared at the map, at the images of mummified bodies.
A heading: TRISKELLION SITES
This she had to read.
Take the key, a voice said. Take the key.
Rachel started, turned round and saw nobody there, realizing simultaneously that the voice had come from inside her own head.
Take the key, Gabriel said again. Rachel looked around the room, her eye finally settling on Laura’s white lab coat on the back of the door.
Hanging next to it was a plastic passkey.
Rachel ran down corridor after corridor, doors sliding open as she swiped the key in the slot at the side of each one. She knew that she would only have a short amount of time to find her way out before someone realized she was missing. She reached the end of another passage and turned left.
A man. With a torch.
Rachel stopped dead, silent in her bare feet, and turned back, moving quickly down another corridor, lit at the end by a single night-light. She ran towards the light and, as she approached, saw that she was coming to a dead end. She looked to her right and saw the steel doors of a lift.
The only way out.
She swiped the key through the electronic reader. A tiny light turned from red to green and the doors slid open. Rachel jumped in and the doors closed behind her.
The lift juddered and began its descent. Rachel caught a glimpse of herself in the grubby mirror that made up the back wall of the lift. She looked like a bag lady: her towelling robe was patchy with brick dust and her damp hair was matted round her white, sickly face. Suddenly the lift lurched to a halt and the doors opened again.
This corridor was different. It was as if she had descended to the bowels of the building. While the upper storeys were shiny, and clad in glass and laminate, this level was concrete and industrial and wet underfoot. Huge pipes and ducts ran overhead and warning symbols on yellow triangles and red plaques were screwed to every surface.
Rachel walked slowly, the hiss of steam and the clanking of a distant pump echoing in her ears. Thick, plastic curtains barred her way, and Rachel pushed them apart. She found herself at the entrance to another room and another pair of plastic curtains, through which a milky light was visible.
She stepped through and the strong smell of disinfectant assaulted her nostrils. As Rachel looked around, she realized she was in some kind of laboratory. Surgical instruments were laid out along stainless-steel work surfaces and, in the centre of the lab, a heavy-duty hospital gurney dominated the room. Rachel’s mouth fell open, the scream frozen in her throat. Her knees began to shake uncontrollably as her guts turned to water.
On the gurney was the naked body of her grandmother.
Rachel took in the white, withered legs, the face still made-up but shrunken now and bony, like a mummified Egyptian queen. The once-perfect hair had been scraped back and flattened against the tiny head, and Rachel gasped at the jagged Y-shaped cut that ran from her grandmother’s throat to below her navel and at the ribs that lay splayed against the cold steel.
Rachel took a step forward. She pressed her hand against her mouth to stem the flow of bile that rose up in her throat. She saw that, like her Bronze Age ancestors three thousand years before, Celia Root had been disembowelled.
Mr Cheung had outdone himself. It was a five-course Chinese banquet with all the children’s favourites: hot and sour soup; crispy duck with pancakes and plum sauce; Singapore noodles; slow-cooked pork with water chestnuts.
“You must have been cooking for days,” Adam said.
Mr Cheung bowed, accepting the compliment, but then shrugged it off, reddening slightly and straightening his chef’s hat. “Just something I knocked up,” he said.
They were gathered round the large wooden table in Mr Cheung’s kitchen. Dr Van der Zee and Laura Sullivan sat, one at either end, with Adam and Rachel on one side, and Morag and Duncan on the other – the younger children boosted by small, tartan cushions.
“Delicious as always,” Van der Zee said, biting into an over-stuffed pancake. He held up a wine glass and swallowed quickly. “Can I propose a toast?” He waited while the others held up their own glasses, the children’s filled with Mr Cheung’s special gingery punch. “To Mr Cheung obviously, and to the Hope Project. To us!”
“To us,” squeaked Morag.
Duncan nodded and took a mouthful.
Laura echoed the toast, but Rachel sensed that her enthusiasm was a little forced. Rachel herself clinked glasses with her brother, and they both beamed at Van der Zee, who returned their smiles with interest.
“To us!”
Rachel cleared her throat before anyone else could say anything, and raised her voice. “And I just wanted to say … thank you.”
“Please,” Laura said. “There’s no need.”
“Yes, there is,” Rachel said. “I’ve been a nightmare and I’ve made everyone’s lives hell.” She looked at Laura, then at Van der Zee. “And I’m sorry. No excuses, I’ve been a royal pain in the butt, so thanks for … sticking with me, OK?”
Next to her, Adam smiled and shook his head. “I think I deserve some kind of medal. I’ve had to put up with you for fourteen years!”
“Why were you a royal pain in the butt?” Morag asked innocently. “Are you some kind of princess or something?”
There was a good deal of laughter round the table and Rachel blushed. Laura leant across and
squeezed her hand, and Adam pretended he was going to be sick when Rachel kissed him on the cheek. Once the laughter had died down, everyone went back to tucking in, while Mr Cheung brought out extra plates of crispy seaweed and steaming tureens of soup. The room was filled with the sounds of spoons and chopsticks flying across the crockery – each plate and bowl decorated with a single word, glazed in blue:
HOPE
“I’m so pleased that you’ve turned the corner, Rachel,” Van der Zee said. “I always knew you would.”
“Even when I was behaving like a brat and smashing my room up?”
“Well, I hoped you would, anyway.” He grinned. “And obviously, I’ll be sending you a bill for the camera.”
Rachel laughed and turned to Laura. “I’m OK now, though, really. It’s taken a bit of getting used to, but I think I’m going to be happy here.”
“Course you will,” Morag said. “It’s brilliant here. It’s ft for a princess even.”
“Princess Pain-in-the-Butt,” Adam said.
Laura leant close to Rachel as the conversation grew more animated round the table. “I’m over the moon,” she said. “I couldn’t stand you being so miserable.”
Rachel apologized again. Laura certainly looked as though she meant it. She seemed genuinely pleased, but more than that, she seemed relieved, as though some disaster had been averted.
Mr Cheung brought out fresh lychees and banana fritters for dessert and the kids piled them on to their plates. Van der Zee leant back in his chair and watched them eat. When Rachel caught his eye he winked at her. He was like the head of a family, she thought, enjoying the contentment of a happy brood.
“I couldn’t eat another thing,” he announced. “What about you, Dr Sullivan?”
Laura shook her head. “Stuffed.”
“Not even one little fritter?” Mr Cheung asked. “Very good.”
“Sorry,” Laura said. “I don’t think I’ll be eating for the rest of the week.”
Van der Zee pushed back his chair. “Perhaps we should leave the children to it then,” he said. “It’s time you and I had a chat anyway.” He stood up and moved away from the table, leaning down as he passed to ruffle Duncan’s hair, to kiss the top of Morag’s head. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, everyone, and don’t make yourselves sick…”
The Burning Page 6
