RUNNERS

by Sharon Sant

  After Sky had washed in a basic but scrupulously clean bathroom, she crept down to the kitchen and peered around the door. The room was unoccupied. A vast, rustic table graced the centre of the room, surrounded by a mismatched collection of wooden dining chairs. Files full of notes and papers lay spread across the table, undisturbed from when Xavier had interrupted his father’s work earlier. Underneath the patchwork-curtained window, a cracked ceramic sink held bowls of soaking vegetables. One wall was covered in row upon row of wooden shelves, dressed with an eclectic array of pots and jars, crockery and cookware; a scuffed wooden cabinet stood in the space underneath. The overall effect was one of warm domesticity. Sky gazed at the sight, her expression one of awe.

  A deep voice close behind her made her jump. She spun around and found Xavier’s father staring at her. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I…’ Sky began, ‘I was wondering if I could see Elijah?’

  ‘No point. He hasn’t woken up yet,’ Pierre replied tersely. As he watched the look of disappointment cross her face, his tone softened. ‘It’s the door next to the bathroom.’

  Elijah was settled on crisp white pillows, worn but, as with everything else in the house, wonderfully clean and comfortable looking. He was almost as pale as the pillows themselves, but looked peaceful enough. The shivering had stopped and it seemed someone had struggled to clean him up; his chest was bare and washed, along with his arms and face, though his hair was still slick with the residue of river water and sweat. Sky pulled up a chair beside him. He stirred slightly and drew a deep breath. The reaction caused her to smile. She sat quietly for a long time, until Francois entered the room.

  ‘Sorry. ’ He looked embarrassed as he took in the scene. ‘Trying to find Xavier.’ He rushed out.

  Elijah’s return to consciousness was gradual. Sometimes he heard disjointed voices and sounds, as if they were inside his head. Some of them he didn’t know, but once he thought he heard Sky talking to him. He could smell her on the air and took a deep, contented breath.

  Eventually, his eyes opened for the first time and his new surroundings swam into view. He didn’t recognise the room. As he struggled to focus, the door opened and Xavier came in. Only, it didn’t seem quite like Xavier. He screwed up his eyes, concentrating hard to work everything out, but his thoughts were too disordered. He tried to move himself and cried out. He remembered his ankle, which had just sent a stab of pain radiating through him. It was coming back to him. They were by the river. He saved Sky, and Xavier saved him. He couldn’t remember anything properly after that, only a lot of mixed up images. Xavier must have brought him here. Perhaps they had all forgiven him.

  ‘Thanks Xavier,’ he whispered. A voice much deeper than Xavier’s replied, causing him to snap his eyes open again in surprise.

  ‘Be quiet. I need to examine you.’

  Elijah lay, still and tense. A man, not Xavier, was in the room with him. But Elijah had no strength to move. He could only wait to see what would happen. The man pulled back his covers and Elijah realised that he was in a proper bed. The man gently took his pulse, listened to his chest, took his temperature, looked in his eyes and ears and prodded his ankle until he finally seemed satisfied and pulled the sheet over him again. Elijah closed his eyes, weary from the effort of having them open. There was nothing he could do to prevent whatever was going to happen to him now. He felt a sharp scratch in the crook of his arm, a warm rush, and drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

  In his dealings with Elijah, Dr Bettencourt was true to his professional code – gentle, attentive and meticulous. He and his wife nursed Elijah patiently, and the intense course of medication, coupled with some wholesome soup, had seemingly miraculous effects. Within a couple of days, Xavier strode down to the summer house to report the good news that Elijah was awake and feeling almost normal again. The others tore up to the house to find Elijah sitting up in bed, still pale but smiling brightly at their entrance. Sky gave him a radiant look, one which he returned. Their private moment was soon interrupted by their companions, who were all clamouring to be heard as they recounted the events he had missed. Only Xavier was quiet and distant as he gazed across the room and out at the sky, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Occasionally, someone would address him directly and he would smile absently, as though he hadn’t really heard what they were saying. Even their jibes about the horse, which, ordinarily, would have provoked a defensive sulk, didn’t rouse him. His behaviour puzzled Elijah, but he didn’t mention it until the others had returned to the summer house later on and Xavier came in to see if he wanted anything.

  ‘Are you ok?’ Elijah tried to sound casual.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Only… you seem quiet. I thought maybe you were still mad at me –’

  ‘Why does everything have to be about YOU?’ Xavier stormed out of the room.

  Elijah soon realised that he was not the only one feeling confused by Xavier’s increasingly distant behaviour. One rare dry morning, when Elijah was feeling well enough to be out of bed, he made his way painstakingly down to the summer house on a pair of crutches.

  ‘We were just talking about you,’ Jimmy smiled as he helped Elijah in, ‘we were going to come up and see you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ added Rowan, ‘If we could sneak past Xavier’s dad.’

  Elijah grinned. ‘I can’t really complain can I? I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. He is a bit scary, though. Won’t let me out of the bedroom. I sneaked off myself; I was going mental in bed.’

  ‘Takes his patients’ health seriously, I suppose.’ Jimmy shrugged.

  ‘Maybe…’ Elijah mused, ‘sometimes, though, I think there’s something else in it.’ He shifted clumsily on his crutches and a flicker of pain crossed his face. Sky led him over to one of the seats which skirted the octagonal walls. The place was littered with their belongings. They had tried to keep it tidy, not wanting to offend Dr and Mrs Bettencourt, but it still resembled a refugee camp. Elijah felt a pang of guilt that he was sleeping in Xavier’s warm, comfortable room.

  ‘Where is Xavier?’ Elijah asked, suddenly noticing his absence.

  ‘He’s never here with us now… he’s acting a bit weird,’ Rosa replied.

  ‘I’d act weird with Dr Bettencourt for a Dad,’ said Jimmy, ‘I can see why he left home. He probably wants to get away from here as soon as possible.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then why stay away from us? It’s like he’s avoiding us…he spends all his time at the house.’ Sky sat down close to Elijah. ‘We see more of Francois than we do of him.’

  Rosa, Jimmy and Rowan exchanged brief, significant looks. The moment was not lost on Elijah, who suddenly felt the urge to move away from Sky. Francois always appeared when Sky visited him. He had watched them through the bedroom window as they took their regular walks across the garden together, out into the woods beyond. He already knew that Francois spent a lot of time in the summer house with them because he had overheard the Bettencourts complaining about it. He also knew now, from Rosa, that Francois had been supplying the food and tea that Xavier was bringing home when they had lived at the old man’s cottage. Elijah, on the other hand, (a fact that made his face burn with shame and regret) had brought them nothing but misery and trouble. Who wouldn’t choose Francois over him?

  ‘We should ask him.’ Elijah tried to push the unwanted thoughts out of his mind.

  Francois put his head round the door. ‘There you are, Elijah!’ He grinned. ‘You’d better get back upstairs, pronto – Dad is not amused.’

  Elijah was gripped by an irrational urge to smash Francois’ handsome head right through one of the windows.

  Elijah spent a restless night with bitter thoughts and twinges of dull pain from his ankle. Companionship was pointless, it only brought misery. When his ankle was mended, he would take off on his own again. He was far better equipped now to manage by himself. Resolutely, he formed plans in the darkness of Xavier’s room.

  The next morning the others, without Xavi
er, took advantage of the fact that Xavier’s father was busy at a neighbouring farm, and came to visit Elijah. It seemed that thoughts of leaving had been on their minds too.

  ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do.’ Jimmy sat himself down at the end of the bed. ‘We’ll have to move on soon, especially as you’re on the mend now…we’ll have no excuse to be here.’

  ‘I could break my other ankle,’ offered Elijah moodily.

  ‘Seriously though, we need to make plans. There’s something else…’ Jimmy glanced at Sky.

  ‘I don’t think Xavier is going to come with us,’ Sky said. ‘Francois told me Xavier has made some sort of deal with his dad… so that his dad would let us stay here while you recovered.’

  ‘Oh, is that what Francois told you?’ Everyone stared at Elijah; the resentment unmistakable in his voice.

  ‘Well,’ Rosa continued watching Elijah closely, ‘It puts a different complexion on things, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it?’ Elijah challenged. He looked at Sky. ‘What about you? Are you staying?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Elijah,’ Rosa cut in. ‘If you’re feeling cranky, there’s no need to take it out on us. Decent as it was of you to save Sky; she doesn’t owe you her whole life in gratitude.’

  ‘I didn’t ask for that!’ Elijah shouted.

  ‘And let’s not forget,’ Rosa continued coldly, ‘why we were in that situation in the first place.’

  ‘Right, that’s fine then.’ Elijah yanked his covers right over himself, almost throwing Jimmy off the end of the bed. ‘I was thinking of taking off by myself anyway. So I won’t be any more of a bother to you.’ He flicked himself over, wincing as his weight settled on his bad ankle. Rosa stormed out of the room. The others gaped at each other.

  ‘Go away,’ Elijah snapped with his back to them.

  When he thought they had gone, he hauled himself back over and started as he found Rowan sitting quietly in a chair.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re such an arse.’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Because I’m too young, I know.’ Rowan picked imaginary lint from his trousers as he spoke. ‘I know one thing, though. Sky really liked you, but you were too busy trying to get off with Rosa. Now she’s got someone else interested, suddenly, you’re acting like she’s yours or something, and she’s confused. You can’t just change your mind like that, it’s not fair.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Elijah’s eyes widened, ‘did you tell Sky that I liked Rosa?

  Rowan looked up at Elijah and shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not exactly… sort of… I told Jimmy and he told Rosa and… but you do, don’t you?’

  Elijah slid down on his pillow and groaned. ‘Rowan… you may just have ruined my entire life.’

  For two more days, no one visited Elijah in his room. Every day he watched from the bedroom window as Francois went to and from the little summerhouse. Sometimes Sky was with him, and he watched them wander off into the woods together. It was better this way, he told himself firmly. This was how he had planned it, he wanted to be alone.

  When the plaster finally came off his ankle he had no excuse to stay indoors. He had to exercise, get strong again, and prepare himself for survival on his own. For the next week, he walked for hours, around the gardens, in the forest, until his ankle ached and his head was swimming with plans. Then he knew he was strong enough to leave.

  Fourteen: Spinning the Web

  ‘Yes, thank you, Tessa, I will speak with him. But tell him to report to my office in person.’ Braithwaite dropped the phone onto his desk, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes with a satisfied smile.

  Dr Stein arrived at Braithwaite’s office in a flurry of anticipation. The corpulent man looked oilier than ever as perspiration rolled down his temples like tiny silver beads of mercury. Under his arm he held the red vinyl folder that Braithwaite had entrusted to him at their previous meeting. Stein had obviously studied the paperwork hard and the volume had increased threefold. A pale young woman in a neat suit, a mass of tumbling black curls and eyes of iodine blue, ushered him in.

  ‘Do you need anything else?’ she asked Braithwaite respectfully.

  ‘No, thank you, Tessa. That will be all.’

  ‘May I go to lunch?’

  Braithwaite nodded and she left, grimacing imperceptibly as she squeezed past Stein’s sweating bulk at the door. Braithwaite nodded him in and indicated the low seat in front of his desk. The holograph that graced the office wall today was an arable scene: golden fields of corn swaying in a glorious sun.

  ‘Now!’ He fixed Stein with a cold stare. ‘Progress report, if you please.’

  Stein, grunting with the exertion, flicked through the folder and extracted a map, which he opened up and laid out to face Braithwaite.

  ‘As you know, all the disappearances are within this area here.’ He indicated a red circled area on the map, filled in with smaller, spread out red dots.

  Braithwaite nodded tersely.

  ‘It doesn’t look like a particularly big area to cover,’ Stein continued, ‘about twenty square kilometres, but the real point we’re looking for is very specific so it has been quite difficult. Some of the disappearances shown here are not related to the phenomenon at all. And some disappearances will, obviously, have never been reported, for various reasons, so we don’t have data for all of them.’ Stein paused for effect. Braithwaite clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘We think we can narrow it down to this section… here.’ Stein pointed a stubby finger onto the map. ‘I have a list with me of necessary equipment, some of which you have already supplied, and there are just one or two final things…’ He looked up expectantly with his finger still squashed on the map.

  A liquid smile spread across Braithwaite’s calculating features.

  ‘Isn’t that the most delicious coincidence?’ he smirked, putting his own finger about three centimetres away from Stein’s on the map. ‘Marcus Bradbury informs me his men have just gone here to pick up our first unwilling volunteer. Apparently, he’s quite the little desperado, wanted for questioning by the police in connection with a raft of offences: affray, food theft and a suspicious death - quite impressive. One would think he would quite like to vanish right now. And I happen to know that he will.’ He leaned forward with a look bordering on fervour. ‘I have been able to procure Grace McKee’s private journal. She mentions this boy in her notes! Which means I have already succeeded, Dr Stein. We could not ask for a more certain outcome.’ Braithwaite sat back in his chair and closed his eyes with an air of smugness. Without opening them, he continued. ‘Ready your team to leave. When we have the youth in custody, I shall have Marcus send him down to you. I don’t think we’ll involve the police at this stage. Their interference may prove to be meddlesome – don’t you think?’ He opened his eyes and dismissed Stein with a look.

  Fifteen: A New Ally

  Elijah was hiding in the forest behind the Bettencourt’s tidy white house. He had spent much of his time here during his recent days of solitude. Sitting at the base of a sturdy pine where the rain was filtered, he ripped a browning branch to shreds and contemplated his future.

  Sky appeared from nowhere, like a wraith. She sat down next to him, hugging her knees to her chest and laying her head across them, so she was looking up at him sideways. Elijah wasn’t exactly surprised to see her; she always seemed to know where to find him, but he wondered why she had come looking.

  ‘Hi.’ Elijah spoke without looking at her.

  ‘Hi,’ she answered from her sideways face.

  He turned to her and couldn’t suppress a little smile, looking away again so it wouldn’t show.

  ‘I dreamt about you last night.’ She took her head from her knees and studied his features.

  ‘Did it involve my pants falling off?’

  ‘No,’ she laughed.

  ‘Not interested then.’ His quick grin faded and an awkward silence hung between them. He continued to shred his bra
nch.

  ‘You’re leaving soon?’ Sky finally asked. It was a question she already knew the answer to.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Sky paused. ‘I’m not seeing Francois, you know. Never was, really.’ Elijah turned to look at her as she continued. ‘Not properly anyway.’

  ‘What does that mean? You either were or you weren’t.’

  ‘He thought we were. But I didn’t.’

  ‘Probably for the best. Imagine having the Bettencourts for in-laws.’

  ‘Probably. Rowan spoke to me too…’ She smiled at him, grasping his hand in both of hers. ‘So, where are you planning to go?’

  Elijah tossed down the mutilated branch and ran his other hand through his unruly hair.

  ‘I thought I might find my mum,’ he said slowly.

  ‘That’s great!’ Sky enthused. ‘Really great!’ She paused uncertainly, ‘On your own?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

  The reply was more than he dared hope for, one that he wanted more than he would have admitted to himself.

  ‘I think we should go and pack.’

  Hand in hand, the morning’s grey drizzle misting their faces and hair, Elijah and Sky raced back to the house. Elijah noticed his ankle hardly bothered him. Perhaps it was strong again, or perhaps it was euphoria-induced anaesthesia. Either way, he felt strong and alive. His bag had been packed for days and was tucked under Xavier’s bed out of sight. He pelted upstairs to retrieve it as Sky hurried to the summer house to tell the others of their plans and pack her own belongings. Elijah wondered what they would say about his mad mission. He felt sure they wouldn’t want to come. Perhaps they would persuade Sky of the folly. It seemed too good to be true that he would have her with him. Hauling his bag onto his back, he tried not to think about it.

  Elijah decided to look for Xavier first and tell him he was leaving. He had spent much of his time at odds with Xavier, and yet felt a pang of regret at the idea of never seeing him again. He moved swiftly through the house looking for him. He stopped at the closed, heavily panelled, drawing room door. From behind it he could hear raised voices. Though he could not make out what they were saying, Pierre and Isobel were clearly having a blazing row. Elijah wanted to speak to them too, but now certainly didn’t sound like a good time, so he passed quickly down the hall into the kitchen and out through the back door.