Ellinan swept his hand across the courtyard. “Brant, look. No one’s here.”
I stepped back out into the garden. The passage the two of us had made was clearly evident, a trail of bent and crushed plants standing out against the dense foliage. I understood his meaning immediately. There were no trails or pathways anywhere in the garden. If someone had been living here and actively tending the garden, they would have left marks in the same way that we’d done.
It was clear that no one had walked through the courtyard in some time.
Returning inside, I checked the bench, the brazier, the floor for any other signs of recent activity. Dust coated everything. In my frantic state I’d missed the signs. On the bed, the yellowed sheets were tangled, as if someone had slept there recently, but the coating of dust on top was thick.
Someone had left in a hurry without cleaning up, but it now seemed quite likely that they hadn’t been here in a long time.
I kneeled at the bed and ran my fingers across the pillow, coming away with a coating of dust, and something else – what looked like tiny hairs. They were pale and brittle, crumbling in my fingers.
Hairs. Human hairs?
There was no way to identify their origin, but I was fairly certain that these couldn’t have lasted the decades since the final humans had died in the Winter. They’d more likely been here for a couple of years at most.
The only other option was that the hairs had come from a synthetic, but those weren’t designed to shed as human hairs did. They could only have been purposely cut.
“What the hell?” I said.
“So what’s going on?” Ellinan said.
“I wish I knew, Ell. None of this makes sense.”
“Should we keep gathering food?”
“No. We should go. I don’t understand what this place is, and I don’t like it. Something isn’t right.”
“Do you think humans live here?”
“Maybe they did, once, but I don’t think they’re here now.” I gave him a nudge. “Come on, we should get home.”
Ellinan turned and began to step out into the garden, taking a couple of steps before tripping awkwardly to one knee.
“Ouch!”
“Careful, now,” I said, reaching out to help him up.
“I stubbed my toe on something,” he said, rubbing at his foot and looking up at me in consternation. “Something hard.”
Using my hands to knock away a cluster of weeds and grass, I was able to see what had caused the boy to stumble. It was a gnarled wooden plank.
“It’s just garden edging, by the looks of it,” I said. “Watch your step.”
I helped him up and he proceeded more carefully, negotiating the raised section of garden successfully this time. I placed my foot forward to follow, then reconsidered.
That feeling in my gut was returning. The feeling that things weren’t as they should be.
I bent to the garden edging again, lifting plants aside and tracing its path along the courtyard. I followed it around, mapping its shape.
“What are you doing?” Ellinan had stopped and now watched me curiously.
“Just wait a second.”
The raised garden was long and rectangular in shape. Wasting no time, I moved to find the next one. Feeling around the edge, I found it to be the same size and shape as the first. And they were in perfect alignment.
“No,” I said, dismayed. The world felt like it was pressing in around me.
“Brant, what’s going on?”
I found two more gardens that matched the pattern, and then pulled up abruptly, running a hand through my hair in disbelief.
This was exactly how Arsha organised her gardens.
“I think I know how this place came into existence,” I said.
“How?”
“It’s one of Arsha’s.”
Ellinan came and stood beside me. Now it was his turn to look confused. “I don’t get it. Why would it be hers?”
“This is how she builds them. Exactly the same alignment, exactly the same size. It’s too close to be a coincidence.”
“Why wouldn’t she have told us about it, then?”
“Because she’s lying about something.”
Ellinan went very quiet. I worked my jaw stiffly, hating myself for saying it, but what other conclusion could I reach? This place was one of Arsha’s plantations. I had absolutely no doubt it. It couldn’t have been more plain had she drawn up a sign and stuck it in the ground out front.
So what was the reason for it? Why had she never mentioned it to me? Why had she built it and seemingly abandoned it, left it to its own devices this side of the city where we rarely ventured?
This side of the city.
I thought again of the proximity of the Displacer lab to this location. It wasn’t far away, no more than five or ten minutes’ walk.
A terrible concept began to form in my mind, one so confronting that I wanted to push it away as soon as it came to me. I wanted to reject it, forget that I had ever even considered it.
I wanted to forget that I’d ever found this courtyard.
But I couldn’t do that. Not now that I’d seen it, not now that understanding was beginning to dawn.
It couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
What if the Displacer lab had been real?
I let that thought stew for a few seconds. I laughed out loud, and there was a kind of desperation in my voice that surprised me. I felt like I was spiralling out of control.
What if the Displacer scenario wasn’t just an implanted memory?
If it was true – if there had really once been human bodies waiting for us in cryosleep – Arsha could have gone ahead and revived the bodies long before I returned to the city. She could have brought them here to this plantation, a place that was nice and close, nourishing them as they regained their strength, attempting to nurse them back to full health.
Then what?
Maybe she had failed. Maybe the human Brant and Arsha had died, their bodies weak after decades of cryosleep, too sick and crippled ever to become strong again. If that had happened, Arsha might have disposed of the bodies somewhere, fleeing the plantation and leaving it here abandoned.
Later, when I returned to the city and began sniffing around the Displacer lab, she might have feared that I would find out the truth, that I would discover that she had failed, that she had ruined all of our carefully laid plans.
Had Arsha burned down the lab intentionally to cover her tracks?
She had been gone for a long time the day the Displacer lab burned down. A long time. Long enough to travel out and start another fire, hoping I wouldn’t put together the pieces.
Had Arsha been lying to me about everything this whole damn time? Was I just a pawn she manipulated to get what she wanted?
Confusion began to give way to anger. It was all starting to make sense. My fist clenched and my hand tightened around the shotgun.
“Brant?” Ellinan said, worried. “What’s going on?”
“I need to find the truth about this place. And I know where to find it.”
I clasped his shoulder and turned him toward the archway, understanding what I needed to do.
“Brant?”
“Just move, Ellinan.”
I know where you keep your secrets, Arsha.
We set off toward home at a brisk pace, jogging as fast as we could manage. Ellinan, on shorter legs, was incapable of maintaining the tempo I sought, but that was understandable. I stopped and waited for him whenever I got too far ahead, and he’d come trotting up to me with a sheepish look on his face.
“You’re doing fine,” I reassured him several times through gritted teeth. I wasn’t angry with him, just with myself. How could I have been so stupid?
We crossed the river at Cook Bridge and soon came within sight of home. At the top of Somerset Drive I stopped and put my hand on the back of Ellinan’s neck, drawing him close.
“Listen to me, very carefully,” I said
. “I need to get something from the garage, but then I’m going to keep moving.”
“What are you doing?”
“Never mind that. The only thing I need from you is to keep your mouth shut, okay? Don’t mention anything about what we’ve found today. You got that? Not a thing. I need to find out what’s going on for myself before I confront Arsha about it.”
“What has she done?” he said. There were tears welling in his eyes. He was terrified.
“Ellinan, I need you to be strong. No tears, okay? Just play it cool.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“It’ll all be okay.” I brushed his hair away from his brow. “Can you do what I ask?”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“If Arsha wants to know where I am, tell her I dropped past Cider. Okay?” He nodded, obviously struggling with what was happening. “Everything’s going to be all right, Ellinan.”
Down at the house, I checked the front window first. Arsha wasn’t there. In the garage I found a spare shovel and tucked it under my arm. Once I’d returned to the street, I motioned for Ellinan to proceed inside. He watched me, agitated, before reluctantly complying.
I kept moving.
26
A half-hour walk lay between me and the truth.
As I moved down the hill on Somerset Drive, I pictured the destination in my mind. Hillview Cemetery. I tried to remember how it looked the last time I had been there. I could picture the old stone staircase that wound its way up the rise in lazy curves like a serpent lying dormant in the gloom, the patches of grass that grew amid the cracked surface of the steps. It was a relic that had been carved into the hillside centuries before, traversed in the interim by uncountable souls who had made their way upward to pay their respects, to bid farewell, to close one chapter or another in their lives.
As I hastened down the street I wondered what chapter I would be closing when I reached the top of that staircase.
It should never have come to this. I shouldn’t be heading this way, leaving those who needed my protection on their own while I searched for the truth. Sadly, there seemed no other choice. After all I’d gone through fighting the Marauders, after I’d overcome the menace of the creature that had stalked me in the city, the surveillance drones, and even the putrefaction of the sky – after all this, it had come to pass that perhaps the greatest threat had originated right under my nose, from the one who should have been closest to me.
I couldn’t trust someone who kept such secrets from me.
I wondered what else Arsha might be hiding. What did she know that I didn’t? How deep had her lies penetrated our relationship? Was there truth in anything she said?
The Marauders, as terrifying as they were, could be dealt with. They were a known quantity. I could cope with them because I understood them. I understood their motives and their methods, and I could predict with some degree of certainty what they might do, and how they might go about doing it.
But if Arsha had deceived me, if she was operating on a level that I couldn’t perceive or recognise, I was lost. I was at her mercy.
And that was why I needed to be at the cemetery, to uncover the truth.
Truth was empowerment. Once I knew and understood, once I had evidence, I’d be able to confront Arsha. I’d be able to take back control.
I gripped the shovel tighter, set my jaw in determination.
It wasn’t the possibility of the Displacer being real that tore at my innards and left me feeling hollow. I’d already accepted that I would never be human. I knew who I was. I didn’t crave becoming flesh and blood as I once had.
No, it was the deceit that ate at me. The manipulation. Arsha and I were supposed to be a team, working together to bring about our goal, fighting anything that might try to get in our way. And there were so many forces outside the city that were trying to destroy us, to cause us to fail. For us to be working against each other, to be serving our own agendas, was infuriating. It was unforgivable.
How could she do this?
When I had returned to the city, the cemetery was the place where I had first found Arsha. She’d been there crouched over a grave. The grave. I’d been naive not to recognise her reasons for frequenting the place before now. I should have realised why she coveted it so.
I knew where to find the grave. It would be covered in dead brown flowers that Arsha had laid there, marking it clearly, differentiating it from all the others around it. A half-hour walk and I’d be there.
The stream at the bottom of the hill was not far away now. I gripped the steel handle of the shovel, felt the coolness of it on my skin.
There was another alternative. What if there was nothing at the cemetery at all? What if there was a perfectly good explanation for the plantation, for the signs of human habitation I’d found there? What if this was all something I was making up in my head?
“Then digging up the grave won’t hurt,” I muttered, and I took the shovel in both hands.
In the distance, I couldn’t yet see the hill on which the graveyard sat, but I knew how to get there. As I walked, the dark sky seemed to press in closer than ever before. It was suffocating, another piece of the wall that was closing in around me. I felt alone, moreso than any time since I’d been lost and broken in the wasteland. Maybe I was destined to fight all of my battles alone. Just me against the world.
A chill breeze sprang up and swirled dust and fragments of dead grass around me. I prepared to head down and across the stream.
“Brant,” came a voice behind me.
My head whipped around, and Arsha appeared there not far behind, slowing her rapid pace and coming to a stop amid the blustery wind, a flinty look in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”
27
“Well, I wish I could say I’m shocked to see you here,” I said, unmoving. “But I’m really not.”
“Come on, Brant,” she coaxed. “Come on back to the house and we’ll talk.”
The sky was darkening quickly. Arsha’s hands had balled into tight fists at her side, but her face betrayed no emotion.
“Oh, we’ll talk, huh?” I spat. “We’ll talk? Isn’t it a bit late for that?”
I opened my shoulders, keeping a good grip on the shovel. I adjusted the weight of the backpack but stood firm.
“You’re upset, I understand that. Just calm down.” She stood with her legs slightly parted, her weight on her toes, as if she were facing off against a caged lion. Ready to run, or fight.
“You know, don’t you?” I said. “You know where I’m going.”
“I have a pretty good idea, yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Ellinan.”
I sighed in annoyance. “Dammit.”
“Don’t blame him. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I could tell by the look on his face that something bad had gone down.”
“Yeah. You read people pretty well.”
“There wasn’t much to read. When he came inside he looked at me like I was a rattlesnake. What else could I assume from that?”
“You’ve been waiting for this to happen, haven’t you?”
“No. Of course not.”
“I don’t believe that.”
She pressed her tongue into her cheek, incredulous. Shook her head. “Do you really think I wanted this? After all I’ve worked for?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Arsha.”
Her eyes flicked vaguely in the direction of the cemetery. “Just come back up the hill. Please.”
“I don’t think so.”
I turned and began to walk away, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her snap into action, fumbling at her back and pulling a handgun from her belt. As I swung back toward her she drew it upward, clenching it in two trembling fists.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Brant.”
I backed up. “Whoa, Arsha,” I said mockingly, “I thought you said you didn’t like guns.”
“I don’t. But so
metimes they’re necessary.”
“Another surprise.”
“Just come back,” she said, becoming irritated. “Come back now.” She indicated curtly with her head.
I remained where I was on the edge of the road in the loose gravel. “Why? You want to take me somewhere and put a bullet in my head?”
“I don’t want you disturbing that grave, Brant. It’s important to me that you leave it alone. I wouldn’t have followed you down here if it wasn’t. And I wouldn’t ever forgive you if you did something to it.”
“You forgive me?” I said. “Why don’t we cut the crap, huh? Why don’t you just tell me what’s in it? What’s this all about?”
“I will, but you need to promise you aren’t going to go there. I don’t want you touching it.”
I let the tip of the shovel drop against the earth.
“I’ll bet. You wouldn’t want me finding the truth, would you? You’d rather give me another bullshit story to lead me in the wrong direction.”
“Listen, I’m not leaving the children alone, but I’m not letting you walk away, either. So come back up the fucking hill!” she shouted, taking a step toward me. The gun was now steady and she dropped one of her hands away, levelling the barrel at my chest. Her mouth compressed into a tight line and she stared me in the eye, unblinking.
I lifted my foot and let it rest against the shoulder of the shovel.
“I don’t think so,” I said, starting to turn again.
“Goddammit, Brant.”
I shifted my weight and the shovel dipped into the dirt as I began to move away.
She advanced menacingly. “I said come–”
With a flick of my wrists I brought the shovel up and sent a clod of dirt flying right at her. It hit her flush in the face as she shouted, catching in her open mouth and slapping into her eyes. She cried out in surprise and gagged, stumbling, and I was already on the move, pirouetting and swinging the shovel in a wide arc. It connected with her wrist with a clang and sent the gun spinning through the air. In one fluid motion I launched upward and brought the heel of my shoe into her chest, and she made a choked urghh sound, tottering and stumbling backward, losing her feet, then rolling over once before ending up in a heap on the road.
The Seeds of New Earth Page 22
