With one last look at the wooden structure and the thick ropes hanging there, I turn to follow him. The room is small and the barred window looks out onto a brick wall. My chest tightens. I’m trapped again!
“If we get caught here there’s no way out!” I say, anxiety rising in my voice.
“We’ll only be a few seconds,” Sanders says calmly as he bends down to open his bag. He pulls out a bundle of black fabric. “Here put this on,” he orders as he throws it to me, “and you,” he continues throwing another bundle at Pascha. We both hold a black jacket of an Enforcer. “Don’t just stand there gawping! Put them on. Quick,” he instructs as he reaches into the bag again. “We’re running out of time.” As I push one arm into the jacket he pulls out a pair of scissors.
“What’re you going to do with those?” I ask, flinching as he takes a step towards me.
“Listen—that hair—it’s beautiful, but it gives you away.”
“What! You want to cut it off?” I ask, incredulous.
“Yeah, we do.”
“Merry, they’ll be looking for a girl with long auburn hair.”
“But-”
“It’s your best chance. You’re not going to look much like an Enforcer with a long braid of hair. Man up, girl!” Owin says, smirking at his own joke.
“But-”
“I’ll do it Merry—cut your hair,” Pascha says putting his hand out to Sanders for the scissors.
I know he’s right and without speaking turn my back to him. He takes the long plait gently in his hands then grips it firmly at the base close to my scalp. I pull very slightly forward as the blades begin to slice through the thick rope of hair.
“Not too short!”
“Stay still Merry! I’m nearly through.”
The scissors close with a final snap.
“Here. Look!” he says and holds up my braid as though showing off a catch from the river.
“Oh!” is all I can manage.
“Do you want it?”
“What? Ugh! No. Just chuck it in the corner,” I say turning to Owin shyly.
“Hah! That’s done the job. Too pretty to be a boy, but not bad. Now for the final touches,” he says taking a small pot from Sanders. He unscrews the lid and dips a stick into the dark mess inside.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Your tattoo,” he says smiling, as he points the stick at my face. “Stay still or I’ll get it wonky.” I obey, not wanting to get poked as he hurriedly draws two lines across each cheek.
“It stinks,” I say in disgust as the pungent aroma wafts into my nostrils. “What’s it made of?”
“You don’t want to know,” he says dryly as he reaches across to Pascha and draws the unmistakable signs of Primitive ownership across his cheeks. My chest tightens as I watch the black lines lengthen there. Please God, don’t ever let them be real!
“Put this on.” Sanders commands, handing me a black cap as he walks to the door. “Let’s go.”
I take a deep breath to push down my fear and make myself ready to face the courtyard.
Chapter Fifteen
Our footsteps clat against the black, red and white patterned tiles of the hallway floor as the door opens. An Enforcer steps through, his eyes widening as he takes us in. I stand rigid behind Owin, hoping to remain unseen. It’s Christoph, the man who answered the door at Baxter’s house, when I’d gone to beg for his help.
“Sanders!” he exclaims, closing the door behind him. “What are you do-”
Sanders reacts instantly, reaching forward to grab Christoph, pushing him up against the wall with his left arm whilst shutting the door. Owin steps forwards and blocks it. Christoph’s eyes widen as he sees me and looks from me to Pascha questioning. He’s recognised me! I knew this outfit wouldn’t fool anyone. Christoph’s face turns puce and his eyes begin to bulge as Sander’s arm pushes up against his throat, pinning him to the wall. He grabs at Sanders’ arms in a desperate attempt to pull them away as he chokes.
“He can’t breathe!” I exclaim as Christoph raises his arms in a gesture of surrender. Sanders releases the pressure, just enough for easier breath, but still tight, making him strain to pull air into his lungs.
“It’s Christoph, one of Nathaniel’s friends.” I say quickly, watching as Sanders leans into him, keeping pressed against the wall. “He works up at Baxter’s house.”
“Yeah, we know. That’s why I nearly cut him off,” Sanders replies with a scowl. “He can’t be trusted, even if he is Nathaniel’s friend.”
“They sent me down to look for her,” Christoph nods towards me. “If I don’t go back out, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
“Something is wrong. We’re just putting it right,” Owin replies with a scowl.
“I can help you,” Christoph suggests, his eyes locked on mine now.
“Help?” I ask staggered. “How can you help?”
“I can walk out there with you,” he says, arms still raised in surrender. “They’ll expect me to bring out a prisoner.” He looks again at Sanders. “If we all walk out together, with her dressed like that, we can disappear among the crowd and get away.”
“We’re going to do that anyway.”
“Then you know it’s risky, but if we go out together, we’ll have a better chance of making it.”
“We? What do you mean we?”
“I want out of here too—same as you.”
I scrutinize his face for any signs of deceit. “He seems genuine, but how do we know we can trust him?”
“We don’t.”
“Listen! You’ve a better chance with me than without me,” he repeats in earnest, his eyes trained on mine, Sanders’ hand still constricting his airways. “You’re all wanted. Forces have been sent out. If I walk out there with you, it might fool people long enough for us to get away. There’ll be less suspicion and we’ll be pretty much invisible.”
“And what if you’re lying?” Pascha asks, his voice harsh.
“I’m not, but that’s a risk you’ll have to take,” he says firmly. Sanders pushes at his throat again. “Ugh!”
“If you are … I’ll break your neck with one crack. You know I will,” Sanders threatens and Christoph’s eyes widen as their eyes lock. “Don’t you!” he adds with menace.
“You know I do, Sanders,” Christoph answers as they exchange a look of understanding.
“They worked together,” Owin explains, “when the Primitives wanted to make sure a job was done, it’d be Sanders and Christoph they’d send in.”
“Oh,” I reply, a chill running through me as I watch the anger of the men’s silent battle.
“We understand each other then?” Sanders demands as he releases his arm from Christoph’s throat.
“Yes.” His voice is hoarse as he clasps his hand protectively around his throat, massaging the soft tissue of his neck, the redness of pressure stained through the skin.
“OK,” Sanders nods his acceptance. “This is the plan,” he says, turning to face us. “When I open this door, Christoph will lead us to the right. We’ll keep to the back of the crowds and walk to the arches. Keep your eyes ahead. Walk in formation. Once we’re through the gates we turn right again.”
“But that’s back into the town.”
“It is Meriall.”
“But why? I thought we were going to get out.”
“We are, but we can’t just walk over the town threshold in the middle of the day on foot.”
“So where are we going?”
“We’re going to hide until nightfall then make our way to the caves?” Owin answers for him.
“And we need to go now. OK?”
I nod my acceptance and Sanders opens the door. The noise of the crowd is overwhelming. Head down, I step out of the door and onto the tarmac of the courtyard. No! Head up. I’ve got to look like one of them. Shoulders back and head up, I follow behind Christoph with Owin at my side, shielded by his bigger body from obvious view. The sun shines down from above,
our shadows squat beneath our legs as we walk. With every step, my heart thuds in my chest and I expect to hear a shout from the crowd giving us away as they spot me and sound the alarm. Pascha’s steps pound behind me. My eyes are trained on the black canvas of Christoph’s jacket, the grey stone blocks of the Magistrate’s Court are peripheral to my right, Owin and the crowd to my left. I will Christoph to walk quicker so that I can reach the safety of the road beyond the archway. My heart beats hard in my chest and I clench my hands to quell the urge to run rising within me.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack
I shift my gaze from Christoph’s back and look ahead.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack
A black stallion emerges from the street and stands in the archway. Mounted on the horse, tall in his saddle, black cloak flowing across its flanks sits Eistrich Kannis. I tense as our eyes lock. A frown draws his brows together and confusion flickers in his eyes as he looks at me. I break the gaze and look away, square my shoulders and stare again at Christoph’s back. The pounding in my chest is so intense that it beats as a sharp pain and the cold sweat of fear sits wet in my armpits. Please, please don’t let him realise it’s me. As we march past and under the archway, I’m sure his eyes are following me, can feel them burning into the back of my head. I clench and unclench my fists, waiting for him to shout or turn his horse to follow us, but the stallion remains still and he remains silent. We step beyond the archway, turn right, and walk away down the road and through to the centre of the town.
I walk in fear, expecting the sound of pounding hooves and Eistrich’s shout, but the terror that was beating at my heart as we walked past him subsides and the further away from the Magistrates Court we get, the easier the tightness of my chest becomes.
“Turn here,” Sanders orders as we reach a junction and turn into a street narrowed by a bank of stone cottages either side. The road dips ahead out of sight, leaving the moors and their shifting black shadows in the distance. We walk past the high brick wall of the corner house and then the shorter brick wall that hides the backyard. Where the brick wall stops a slatted wooden fence, overhung with branches and twisting creepers, takes its place. Looking through gaps in the slats I can see that the back garden is spotted with trees and much is laid out in strips for vegetables. At its end, we stop and turn into an area of dense scrubland sliced between the back garden and the first row of houses.
“We need to go deeper and then through the gardens to that house there,” Sanders says, pointing at the staunch row of terraced bricks that make up the imposing three-storey houses fronting the main road we turned from. “There are cellars beneath that row—all linked. That’s where we can stay tonight. We wait here until dusk.”
Feeling safer, hidden beneath the tangled canopies of the hawthorns and the up-growing shrubs, the tension eases a little more and I slide my arm around Pascha’s waist, needing to feel his closeness. He squeezes me back and we stand, holding each other, in disbelieving quiet that we’re together again.
The hours pass in tense anticipation as we sit huddled among the thorny branches of the thicket, talking soft and low, listening out for any hint that we’ve been discovered. As the last of the sun dips below the horizon and darkness closes in around us, Sanders stands, pushes his way through the bushes and peers over the top of the boundary fence and expertly surveys the expanse of land between our hiding place and the house we need to reach without being seen.
“She’s ready,” he whispers back at us. “Come look,” he orders beckoning us to join him. “See that window? The one in the middle of the terrace at the bottom? Looks like it’s on the grass?”
“Yeah. The one flickering?”
“Yes. That’s a candle. She put it there to let us know it’s safe.”
“She?” I ask, wondering who would risk her life to hide us.
“Owin,” Sanders says, my question unheard, “you take Meriall over first. Pascha and Christoph, you’re next. I’ll follow. Keep your heads low and stay in the shadows. Wait beneath that last tree until we’re all together,” he commands. “Got it?”
We’re agreed and make our move to the fence where the nails have rusted and the slats dropped, making it easy for us to push them aside and squeeze through. We move quickly down the garden, taking cover under the trees and shrubs that fill the space at the back then cling to the fence that divides it from the neighbouring garden. A brick outhouse gives us cover and we stop and wait to re-group. The windows of the houses are dark, any light inside hidden by thick curtains drawn at the windows. Only the yellow candlelight in the basement window flits and flickers. Large slabs cover the area outside at the back of the house where a child’s bike lays forgotten beneath an empty washing line. In the corner are steps, skirted by an iron fence and a gate, that lead down into darkness.
“Wait here while I check it’s all clear,” Sanders whispers as he joins us then immediately walks across the yard, disappearing down the steps, his black uniform the perfect camouflage, merging him with the night and the blackness of the hole. A quiet knock of knuckles on wood, too soft to be heard, sounds out in the cold of the night. Crouching low, hugging the shadows of the outhouse walls, we wait.
The claxon sounds.
Startled, I shift and look back over the fence to the brick wall beyond as though I can see the noise there.
“They’ve sounded the alarm!”
“Yeah. I’m only surprised it took so long,” Owin replies laconically.
“How’re we going to get out now.”
“We’re out. This is part of the plan.”
The curtains in an upper window twitch and the pinched face of a woman peers down into the yard and across the darkening garden.
“Get back!” I warn and shrink back behind the outhouse wall. “There’s a woman at the window.”
Owin peers around the corner of the outhouse and up at the house. “It’s her,” he says, his voice thick with relief, as he leans back against the wall. “Sanders will tell us when it’s clear.”
We wait and still nothing happens.
“What if it wasn’t her?” Pascha whispers. “What if it wasn’t her and she-”
“Shh!” Owin hisses. “Listen. The door’s opening.”
A light flickers and Sanders suddenly appears, a silhouette against the brightness of the basement window.
“Hsst,” he calls across the night.
“Let’s go!” Owin urges and taps at my shoulder. I don’t hesitate and run, crouched in the shadows, to Sanders and the brightening steps. Pascha and Christoph are immediately behind me as I follow Sanders down into the basement.
Inside, my eyes take a moment to adjust to the brightness. The smell hits me first, a sweet but musty odour, and memories of home wash over me as I remember the little cellar pantry where we kept the meagre supply of apples and root vegetables dry, and our meat fresh. My mother’s voice speaks faintly to me as I step further into the room, the men walking in behind me, and a pain jolts my heart at her memory. Here, the shelving lines the wall and is stacked with hundreds of glass jars filled with preserves and dozens of neatly stacked wooden crates. On the floor, overfull hessian sacks sit lumpy along the wall. The sweetness of the smell invading my nose and my memory wakens my hunger and draws me to the straw-filled boxes and I walk over to them in a trance, reaching my hand deep into a crate, pushing my fingers through the straw and finger a round fruit, cold and waxy to the touch. I brush aside the straw, my belly growling now, and gaze at the shining red skin of an apple. In my mind I’ve already taken a bite of its delicious flesh.
“Meriall!” Owin’s voice jolts me out of my thoughts and I drop the apple back into the crate, guilt spreading through me. “We’ll eat soon,” he says gently as he steps to my side.
“Yes, sure,” I mumble, turning back to the room where Pascha, Sanders and Christoph sit at the table pushed up against the far wall, already deep in conversation.
“Once we get to the caves we’ll be safe. We’ve sent out
word to Riley and Xavier,” Sanders says in hushed tones.
“Riley!” Christoph exclaims. “I thought he died with Xavier at Mappledale!”
“That’s the official line. The truth is they defected to the resistance.”
“The Primitives didn’t want that kind of news leaking out so they covered it up—spread the word that they’d been killed.”
“They don’t want us to know anything!” I interrupt with passion stepping up to the table. “That’s what they did to us in Bale. They took away everything—stopped us learning. We could only know what they wanted us to know.”
“That’s the way they get you to obey, Meriall. It makes it easier for them to control you. First they come down hard, cruel, make you fear them, starve you, then they take away your rights and tell you everything you’ve ever believed is wrong. After that, when you’re exhausted and your spirit is crushed, you just start to listen and do as you’re told. Towing the line—it’s how we survive. It’s how I survived anyway.” Owin says, his face grim, the pain of his memories evident.
“They took me from the streets,” Sanders adds, suddenly tense, his shoulders hunched forward as his eyes lose their focus and his thoughts deepen. “After the Downfall, we were managing to survive—just—but then Mum got sick.” He stops for a moment, the emotion beginning to show on his face. “She died.” I put my hands on his shoulder as his head droops. “When my dad got sick too … I did my best—went out looking for food every day—but it wasn’t enough. I was on my own then. They caught me when I was out scavenging,” he says with an edge of bitterness. “I say caught, but I was so damned hungry—living off rats—that when they offered me food and a warm place to live I took it. I can’t say they haven’t been good to me, but what they do—the slaves—and now the kids they’re trading—it just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“If they ever catch me, I’ll make them pay!” Pascha blurts. Listening to their stories has ignited his passion. “They killed my father and then took my sister Edie.” His voice is hoarse and the men look at him intently, reflecting the pain in his eyes with their own. “She was taken in the first collection,” he adds, “with Nathaniel.” He grasps for my hand. His grip is firm and I return the pressure. “When they came to our village, my dad—he knew they were dangerous!” I lean into him. “We’d escaped them when they started pushing their way into our town. We thought we were safe in Bale, but Malachi found us there. My dad, he knew how dangerous they were, and when they tried to force us to follow their ways he resisted—tried to fight them—him and some of the other village men …” He stalls as emotion takes over then takes a deep breath and continues. “They fought hard, but they were no match for the Primitive’s fighters that came with Malachi.” He stops again and wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me to him. With my arm across his shoulder, giving my strength to him he continues. “They hung the others, but my dad … they … they burned him alive.”
Chosen (Dark Powers Rising Book 3) Page 10
