by Tim O'Rourke
“Valais,” Rush said thoughtfully, turning and looking into the fire.
“Does that mean something to you?” I asked him, hoping that he might be able to shed some light on the matter.
“It’s where some of the children and their families come from,” he said.
“Where is it?” I asked, the fall of my tears now a gentle trickle.
“In Switzerland,” he said, looking back at me.
“Switzerland?” I whispered, some vague memory of my uncle mentioning such a place to me many years ago. How I wish now that I had listened to the stories that he told – read the news that he came back with and wrote about in his newspaper. If only I hadn’t have been so dismissive of the stories he wrote – just like I’d been dismissive of my parents’ notion that the world had been saved by a beautiful young witch. “Where is Switzerland?” I asked Rush, needing to know more.
“Many miles from here – across the sea and…”
“So if it’s so far away, how come the children in Shade come from there?” I asked, knowing that the villagers were rumoured to have gone missing some ten years ago. Knowing that this might be my very first chance of starting the investigation I’d come to Shade to undertake, I dried my eyes and waited intently for Rush’s answer.
He continued to stare into the fire and not at me. “Their parents came from Valais,” Rush started to explain. “We all did. We left because it was dangerous there. The beautiful immortals had left our land in ruins. So we fled. We travelled across the sea, drifting on the tides, leaving our lives in the hands of fate. Our voyage lasted seven days before we found ourselves heading toward a distant shore. It was England. We came ashore and travelled over hills and through valleys until we came across Shade. Just like it is now, Shade was hidden by the wall that you came through. The village was deserted. All the houses and shops stood empty. As there appeared to be no one living in Shade, we guessed it would be safe to stay and make it our home. We started a new life here. We settled. Some of us started families – had children.”
“But I thought you told me that you had lived in Shade your whole life?” I quizzed him.
“I was just a ten-year-old boy when we arrived in Shade,” he said. “That is a lifetime to someone so young. Shade is where I’ve grown up. It’s all I really know.”
“So are your parents here, too?”
Rush shook his head. “No, they died when I was very young. I have no memory of them at all. A friend raised me and my brother.”
“Your brother?” I gasped. “Does your brother and this friend live in Shade too?”
“You’ve met them already,” Rush said.
I took a deep breath. “Calix? He’s your brother?”
Rush nodded. “My older brother by just a few months.”
I remembered glancing at Rush as we’d run through the woods and thought that there was some vague resemblance between him and Calix. Now I understood why. Then frowning, I said, “If you and Calix are brothers, how come he is only older than you by a few months?”
“Same father, different mothers,” Rush said. “My father loved women – couldn’t keep his hands off them,” Rush explained.
“But your surname is Rush and Calix – well he’s called Calix,” I said as if trying to unravel some riddle.
“Owen – Calix – hated my father so refuses to take his name. Calix is his mother’s surname – he wants to remember her,” Rush said.
“Remember her?”
“She died during childbirth and my father never let him forget it,” Rush said, staring away as if he were ashamed of what his father had done. “Unfortunately, my mother wouldn’t let Calix forget that he wasn’t hers. It was like my mother punished Calix for my father’s infidelity. She fed and looked after Calix, just like she did me, but there was no real love. But me and Calix were brothers, we shared the same father. Kids see the world differently and it didn’t bother us that we had different mothers and we became friends – best friends – we were brothers after all.”
Then remembering what I thought I’d heard as I’d stood outside the Weeping Wolf, I gasped, “So Rea raised you?”
“Yes,” Rush said. “If it hadn’t have been for her then I don’t know what would have become of Calix and me – left behind in Switzerland I guess. But she saved us. She taught us to shoot – to defend ourselves.”
“How old is Rea?” I asked, unable to push the memories of what I’d heard coming from the upper rooms of the pub from my mind.
“She is thirty,” Rush said. “She was just twenty, my age now, when she fled with us to England. I don’t know if I would’ve done the same thing. She’s been a good friend to me and my brother.” As if reading the agog look on my face as I took in everything Rush had told me about the three of them, he added, “Why do you look so surprised?”
I couldn’t tell him why. I couldn’t tell him what I’d heard. What if I was wrong? Even worse, what if I was right? Would it bother him that his brother and the woman who had raised them were having sex? Did he know? Did he care? Was it any of my business?
“I’m just surprised that you and Calix are brothers,” I half lied. “You’re both so different.”
Rush fell silent before the fire and for the first time, that beautiful smile of his had faded from his lips. I thought of what he told me. If it were true – and I had no reason to suspect that it wasn’t – Rush and his people had arrived in Shade after the villagers had gone missing – after my parents had vanished.
“So the children were all born in Shade?” I asked, mentally trying to do the math, just checking to see if I could find any holes in Rush’s story. That’s what any good investigative journalist would do, wouldn’t they?
“Suzanne was born first. She is ten – the eldest,” Rush said.
That would fit, wouldn’t it? Rush had said that they had arrived in Shade some ten years ago? Suzanne’s mother could have been pregnant before fleeing their home in Switzerland. That would work out.
As if filling in more gaps that I might have, Rush said, “That’s why the children must have written on their school books in Valais. Their parents are still very traditional, and many of them still speak their native language in their homes, they have taught it to their children – they have taught them to read and write it. But their grasp of English isn’t so good. They can speak it okay, but to read and write it is a different matter. Rea has been looking for an English teacher since Julia passed…”
“Julia – that was the old school teacher, right?” I cut in.
“Right,” Rush said with a nod of his head. He rubbed his hands together before the fire. “Julia Miller. She died just a year or so ago. She was fluent in speaking, reading, and writing English, so she was appointed teacher once we had settled in Shade. Julia taught all of us. Some of us learnt quicker than others – some of the adults still struggle, but we can get by…”
“Why the need to learn English?” I asked him, the last of my tears dried on my cheeks.
“We live in England, don’t we?” Rush said, and for the first time since talking, he turned to look at me. That oh-so-kissable smile was back. I was glad to see it. It kind of made me feel better about things – made me feel warm on the inside.
“I know that, but it’s not as if you’ve mixed with the others since you’ve arrived,” I said, “you’ve stayed shut away behind the walls that surround Shade.”
“We might not always be able to hide behind these walls…”
“Hide?” I cut in. “What are you hiding from?”
“Perhaps hide is the wrong word,” Rush said, scratching his stubble flecked chin. “Stay safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“From places like the Twisted Den,” he half-smiled back at me. “Isn’t that why you left and came looking for sanctuary in Shade? Didn’t you feel unsafe on the other side of these walls?”
But that wasn’t the real reason I had come to Shade. It wasn’t fear that had driven me here. It was the n
eed to find the truth about my parents’ disappearance. But I couldn’t tell him that. Not now. He would think me some kind of fraud and liar. But was there any point in staying in Shade? I looked at Rush. He wouldn’t know anything about my parents if what he said was true about arriving in Shade and finding it already deserted. Rush and his people had come after whatever had happened here. But there might be some clue – some piece of information – which I had yet to find that would explain what had happened to the people of Shade. And despite what Rush had said about keeping safe from the world beyond the walls of Shade, I knew that something lurked in the village that would keep us far from safe. Despite what Calix said, I knew that there was something – werewolf or not – hiding in Shade and it had already killed once. It had killed that little girl, Annabel.
Chapter Eight
“Calix has all that writing – Valais – all over his chest, back, and arms,” I blurted out.
“When did you see Calix undressed?” Rush shot a look at me. He now had an expression across his face that I couldn’t read any more clearly than the writing I had seen. Was it a look of jealousy? No. Why would it be?
“He showed up this morning and fixed the lock,” I said, leaving out the part where I’d discovered Calix watching me naked in the shower. “He made some big drama about stripping off to the waist while he fixed the door.”
“Oh,” Rush said. “Sounds like Calix. He loves to flex those muscles in front of the girls.”
“Well, his muscles didn’t do anything for me,” I said, secretly remembering how deep inside I’d actually thought it was a shame that such a nice looking body belonged to such a jerk.
“No?” Rush cocked an eyebrow at me.
“No,” I said. “And besides, why has he covered his body with all that writing?”
“Calix wants to remember,” Rush said.
“Remember what?”
“Where we originally came from – our home,” Rush said. “He left our home reluctantly in Switzerland. He thought we should have stayed.”
“I wish he’d go back,” I muttered under my breath.
Rush heard what I’d said. “Calix isn’t so bad when you get to know him.”
“So you keep saying,” I said. “He blames me for the death of that girl but it’s true what I said. I did see those hands grab Annabel. And there was something else, too.”
Rush glanced at me. “What?”
“She said something – just before she was grabbed from behind,” I told him.
“Like what?”
I closed my eyes, picturing Annabel standing beneath the trees at the edge of the graveyard just before those slender white hands shot from the darkness and took hold of her. With gooseflesh breaking out over my arms, I opened my eyes and looked at Rush. “Annabel said that there are no humans. What do you think she meant by that?”
With that infectious smile creeping over his face again and blue eyes shining bright, Rush said, “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“How can you say that?”
“Look, I’m devastated that the little girl got killed by a wolf, but she was known as a bit of a troublemaker – you know the sort of kid. She was kinda wild, always in trouble. Annabel was always wandering off. I’ve lost count of how many hours we’ve wasted searching the woods for her fearing that she had come to harm. She’d been warned to keep away from the wood beyond the graveyard. She was forever lying and making up tales. It was probably because of some feud or disagreement that Suzanne got into a fight with Annabel.”
There hadn’t been any kind of disagreement between Suzanne and Annabel that I’d been aware of and I wasn’t convinced that was the true reason for the fight breaking out in class. And there was something else too that Rush had said that didn’t sit quite right with me. “Why would’ve Annabel had to keep away from the wood?” I asked him. “I thought you said you were all safe in Shade – that’s why you stayed here and made it your home.”
“I also said that we do have a problem with stray wolves getting into Shade,” Rush reminded me. “You saw what happened to that sheep last night – now the same thing has happened again, but this time it’s far worse.”
“But it wasn’t a wolf,” I dared to say. I felt comfortable to share my doubts with Rush. He wouldn’t try and belittle me like Calix had done. “She was grabbed by hands – not paws.”
“And I think Rea believes you,” Rush said.
His words surprised me. “Really? How do you know?”
“Because she didn’t kick your crazy arse out of here.” Rush smiled at me. Part of me wished that he would stop smiling, however much I liked it. Perhaps that was the problem.
“So you think I’m crazy?” I asked.
“I think you had a really bad scare today, and I’m not talking about seeing Calix stripped half naked,” he laughed.
“It’s not funny,” I groaned.
“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, gently taking one of my hands in his. “I’m just trying to put your mind at rest.”
I looked down at his fingers as they covered mine. His touch was cold, even though I’d seen him warm them before the fire. I didn’t move my hand away from his. “I’m sorry that I cried. I’m sorry that I made such a fool of myself.”
“Is there anything else you feel you have to apologise for? How about the bad weather?” Rush teased.
“I’m sorry Annabel is dead,” I said, without looking up at him, another horrific snapshot image of her lying dead beneath the trees scraping across the front of my mind. Tears began to threaten again. And those tears weren’t threatening to flow merely because the girl was dead, but because perhaps Calix had been right. Perhaps it had been my fault that she had died. And it didn’t matter how much Rush tried to assure me that it wasn’t, Annabel had been put in my charge. I had been entrusted by Rea to look after her and the other children. And why hadn’t I pulled my gun? Calix was right about that too. Perhaps I could have shot whatever it had been that had snatched Annabel. And to hear Calix say that I was a fucking joke made my heart ache. Not because his words were unkind or cruel, but because they were true. If I hadn’t panicked, kept my wits about me, then I would have pulled the gun and saved the little girl. And that was the biggest joke of all. There I was, parading around Shade with a gun stuffed down the back of my jeans like some kind of gunslinger, and I didn’t even know how to fire the freaking thing. Did I really think I could march into Shade and find out the truth about what had happened to my parents? Did I really believe I could unravel the mystery of Shade and the witch who had come to save the world? Was I really that arrogant? No. I was just really that fucking stupid. My stupidity and childish ways had got me into trouble back in Maze – I’d nearly got murdered because I hadn’t listened to my uncle’s and Flint’s warnings. If it hadn’t have been for Flint saving me, I would be dead now. And even when both of them warned me not to leave Maze, I didn’t listen. I thought I knew best. But what did I know? Not much. I’d scoffed at my parents, my uncle, and boyfriend. But why had I done that? Was there a part of me that wanted to prove my independence, not only to them but to me? Maze, my uncle, and Flint were all I’d ever known. How would I ever know anything if I didn’t leave Maze and the safety-net both my uncle and Flint offered me. I needed to make my own way – make my own mistakes – however painful they might be.
“You have that look again,” I heard Rush say, gently taking my chin and tilting my head to look at him.
“What look?” I whispered.
“Like you need to be saved,” he said.
“Saved from what, exactly?” I asked.
“From me,” he smiled, leaning forward and kissing me tentatively on the mouth.
If I let Rush kiss me, would that be another mistake I would soon regret? How would I ever know if I didn’t kiss that perfect smile back? With eyes closed, I pressed my lips against his. I thought of Flint and my heart twisted.
Chapter Nine
“Stop,” I whispered, breaking the
kiss.
“I’m sorry,” Rush said, looking down. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Why did you?” I asked. Although I had broken our kiss, our fingers were still locked together.
“Because I wanted to,” he said. “I’ve wanted to ever since I first saw you in the pub.”
“Really?” I said, feeling shocked by what he had said. And why did it shock me? Was it because Flint was the only guy I’d ever kissed? Or was I more shocked by the fact that Flint had been the only guy who had ever wanted to? But Flint had been the only guy I had ever wanted to kiss – until now. And I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. I felt guilty for sure – like I had betrayed Flint somehow. I knew Flint loved me. He had told me so. But it wasn’t Flint’s voice I could hear in my ear, nor Rush’s, but Calix’s.
Your boyfriend loves you so much that he let you come all alone to a place like Shade, I remembered Calix smirking as we stood alone on the upstairs landing together, towel pulled tight about me. I pushed thoughts of Calix away, not wanting to think of him.
“I’m not very good at this sort of thing… as you can see there aren’t too many young women my age in Shade… not pretty ones at least… but I knew I liked you from the moment we met,” Rush said, lifting his head so our eyes could meet.
I wanted to look away. Not because I didn’t like what Rush was saying, but because I did like it and I knew that there was a part of me that liked him. Those nagging feelings of guilt for Flint were gnawing away at me like a wild animal. I didn’t know what to say. For the first time in my life I couldn’t find the right words. Were there ever any right words? Shouldn’t I just say the first thing that came to my mind? No. No way. I might say something that I might regret. But there I go again. All knotted up inside – fearing that I might make a mistake.
“I’m glad that you found Shade,” Rush said, filling the silence with his soft voice.
“When we went back to the hole in the fence you asked me if I wanted to leave,” I reminded him with a fragile smile.
