by Sarah Dalton
“He doesn’t look like he’s coming for a visit and a stroll round the Compound.”
“What makes you think he’s coming here?” Daniel said.
“Why else would you have the vision?”
He shrugged. “Maybe we meet him elsewhere.” Daniel shifted his weight on his legs, stiff and awkward from the night of sleeping on the floor. He still had mud on his clothes and caught in his hair. “Mina, about last night…”
My cheeks warmed. I’d been trying not to think about those few moments in the tent before I ran away, the confusing surge of emotions that had been running through my veins. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. I made you uncomfortable. I got… carried away. I’ll never do that––”
“I know,” I said.
He took my hand. “Do you though? Do you understand how sorry I am?”
I exhaled and looked deep into his eyes. “I think so.”
“Good.” He laughed. “You’re not even sixteen yet. I’m such an idiot. Of course you’re not ready.”
For the first time since leaving Area 14 I realised that Daniel was a year older than me. That meant an extra year of experience, and I hadn’t even thought about it. He could have done anything in that time. My fingers burned at the thought. I remembered how he knew about the Slums and what the men did there. What if he already knew how to…? I couldn’t even bring myself to think about it.
“Mina? Are you all right?” Daniel stroked my cheek. “You’ve gone pale.”
“It’s this headache,” I lied. “Maybe we should wash and then help with the clearing up.” I looked at the drawing of the man with the machine gun. “Then we should take that to my dad.”
Daniel helped me to my feet, and I tried to ignore the nausea resting in my stomach.
*
A few hours later I was pulling Ali’s sheets from the mud. He was nowhere to be seen. I hoped he was all right. The last time I’d seen him he was staring out into the distance, drunk and melancholy.
The Compound was a flooded mess. Due to the lack of drainage the ground was muddy and waterlogged. People’s belongings were strewn all over the grounds and dirtied from the storm. The pelting rain had soaked through all the hay, making it almost unusable, the plates and cutlery were drowned in puddles, people’s tents had been destroyed and bunting was trodden into the mud. Compounders were out in force, helping each other, including Angela and Cam, who stayed away from us in the crèche, making sure that the children’s clothes hadn’t fallen into the mud. My dad worked with Dr Woods to check people for signs of hyperthermia and pneumonia. Many of the more drunk people had passed out in their tents and woken up to find themselves drenched and cold. Kitty and Mike pulled crockery out of puddles whilst Daniel shifted sodden bales of hay down to the farm. His stools had survived the storm and I was glad.
We hadn’t told anyone about the vision yet, there were more pressing things to deal with, but I had a bad feeling at the pit of my stomach. I knew that whoever the man was he was dangerous, and that meant he was a danger to the people in the Compound. Every time I thought of the children I felt the blood drain from my cheeks. We were sitting ducks in this place. Any surprise attack could mean serious loss of life. The army were a joke. They protected themselves, not the Compound. They stayed behind the bricks and mortar of the castle. I still didn’t know what they did except stand guard at the border and the gate into the castle. Apart from that they just wandered around slapping each other on the back and nicking food from the market.
There were a few things I wanted to know – firstly, what was the Celebration and what did it have to do with teenagers? Secondly, how many weapons did the army actually have? Thirdly, how many vehicles did they have and what were they? I made a mental note to interrogate my father with this information. He had become so chummy with members of the Council that he had to know. I was sick of sitting back and watching. It was time to take action. I didn’t run away from the corruption in Area 14 just to find a new kind in the Clans.
I carried the sodden fabric in my arms, in my own world, not paying proper attention to where I was going. Then, all of a sudden, someone stuck out their foot as I passed them and I tripped, falling flat on my face in a huge puddle. There was some giggling, and I looked up to see Angela and her two farm-women friends laughing down at me. I pulled myself up and gathered the dirty sheets.
“So you’ve become a bully now, Angela,” I said. “After everything we went through in Area 14 with the GEMs, you’ve decided to become even worse than them. You’ve sided with these bitter women over your own friends.” I glared at the two side-kicks. “What happened to you?”
For the most fleeting of seconds, Angela’s face softened. But then one of the women nudged her and she regained focus. “I don’t like your type,” she said. “You’re an abomination. You go against nature.”
“How do you know?” I replied. “You don’t know what I am. All you know is that I’m different and you hate it. You can’t stand being left out. This is all just spite. You know, I saw this coming and I feel stupid for not doing something sooner. I saw how jealous you were that Daniel and I had powers you didn’t.”
“Oh, here we go.” Angela rolled her eyes. “The world revolves around you and Daniel.”
“Are you stupid, Angela? Don’t you know how much I would love to be normal?” I tutted, ready to walk away. “It’s you that’s made this about me and Daniel. You are the one who is hateful and spiteful and afraid of the future because you don’t know your role in it. You’ve been dragged along by us, a burden to us all this time, and now that you’ve decided that you hate us you have no part to play and that scares you. So you’ve made a little team with the two witches here instead.” I hated myself for my bitter words, but my temper was rising and there was little I could do about it.
“What did you call us?” one of the farm-hands shrieked. Before I could answer she kicked me squarely in the shin and pain exploded in my leg.
I dropped the sheets again and the other woman slapped me hard around the face whilst the kicker grabbed hold of my right wrist and yanked back on my hair with her left hand. I squirmed but couldn’t break free when the slapper grabbed my right arm and held me still.
“Finish her, Angela, do it!” they taunted.
Angela looked at me, her face full of horror. She was young again, scared and small. Despite everything I wanted to hold her and tell her it would be all right. But then, just as before, the expression flickered away and her face hardened. Angela pulled her fist back and slammed it into my stomach.
22
“We’re through,” I said. “You’re dead to me.”
Angela pulled her hand back from my stomach. Her eyes were wide and scared. I looked straight through her, trying to ignore the tears in my eyes. Angela backed away, her top lip trembling. Soon she was running away from me, leaving me with her two side-kicks. They dropped me to the floor. One of them kicked me in the side. I lay with my face in the mud, without the energy to pick myself back up.
“Mina! Mina, are you okay?” It was Mike. He ran up to me and pulled me out of the mud, wiping it from my face. In another instant Kitty and Hiro were there. Kitty helped Mike get me to my feet.
“I’m fine,” I said, and it was true. The three women had hit me hard, they were farm-hands after all, but there was little pain and just a few bruises. I just felt numb all over. Numb and tired.
“Was that Angela?” Kitty asked.
Hiro answered. “Yes.” He pushed his little hand into mine and I held back a sob.
Mike shook his head in disbelief. “The emotions of those three. Just black, so black. Mould and chilli and sulphur and… rosemary, which is weird one.”
“What dies rosemary mean?” I asked.
“Regret,” he replied. “And lots of it. It was like someone had set a rosemary plant on fire and then a dog had peed on it to put it out.”
“Ew, Mike!” Kitty exclaimed.
“I can’t hel
p what I smell,” Mike replied.
I held myself back from asking whether the regret had come from Angela. Instead I let my friends, my new family, help me back to my trailer. Kitty took Ali’s sheets and soaked them in a bucket of hot water. Hiro made me a cup of tea whilst I supervised to make sure he didn’t scold himself, and Mike pumped the sink full of water so I could wash. I’d never been so grateful in my life.
When Daniel returned from the farm he found us all huddled in our trailer, sipping tea and examining his pencil drawing of the machine-gun wielding man. After spotting the red slap mark across my face I had to explain the scuffle with Angela and then Mike had to stop him from chasing after Angela.
“What are you going to do even if you find her?” I said with a sigh.
“I dunno, shout at her?” he said. “Like her mum used to.”
“She has no mum or dad now,” I reminded him. “She has no one to listen to.”
“Maybe your dad,” Mike suggested whilst lounging on my sofa bed, taking up most of the room in the trailer. “Didn’t she used to look up to him?” Kitty, sprawled across him, tapped him on the knee in approval.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Daniel said. He perched against the stove. I sat opposite him on a deck chair with Hiro perched on my lap. “He might be able to get through to her.”
“We have bigger things to worry about,” I said. “Like this guy.” I held up the drawing. “Hiro says he’s seen this guy in someone’s mind.”
“But I don’t remember who,” Hiro said. He pushed his head into my chest and I stroked his hair.
“That’s okay, Hiro. We’ll figure it out.” I soothed.
“I remember they were scared. They thought he was a bad person. It’s like when some people think about war,” Hiro said.
“War?” Daniel looked at me in surprise. “What kind of war?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said.
“There are different Clans,” Mike explained. “From what I’ve gathered from living here for the last year there are more Clans in the North – the Perthans and the Highlanders. I don’t know much about them except that the Perthans are controlled by women and the Highlanders are controlled by a man called Hamish McAllister. In between us and the other Clans there are many abandoned cities where Nomads wander. They don’t belong to any of the Clans.”
This was news to me. I’d often thought about what was outside the Compound, but I didn’t realise there were more organised communities.
“How big are these Clans?” I asked.
Mike shrugged. “I’ve never heard numbers. But this Compound is small compared to the rest of Scotland. They would outnumber us for sure.”
“I bet your dad knows,” Kitty suggested. “We should talk it over with him.”
“Why are you worried?” Hiro asked, looking up at me. “Don’t you trust your dad anymore?”
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to work out what I felt towards my dad. There were so many conflicting emotions that I just couldn’t work it out.
“Urgh, Mina, you stink,” Mike said.
“What am I feeling?” I asked him. “I don’t even know.”
“You smell like blood,” he said, “sweet, rusty blood. That means you’re afraid.”
*
We found Dad with Dr Woods, who smiled thinly at the arrival of all the Freaks together. They were taking the temperature of a toddler who screamed until he was red in the face. The mother, a girl who looked little over the age of sixteen, and had long greasy blonde hair, tried to soothe the baby by bouncing him up and down on her knee, causing Dr Woods’ stethoscope to slip from his chest and the thermometer to fall from his mouth. Dr Woods sighed and set up his equipment again.
“Dad, can we talk to you?” I asked.
He looked at each of us in turn with an expression of both confusion and concern. “Of course. Is something the matter?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Mike said. “But maybe we should go somewhere more private.”
“Well, I’m helping Dr Woods at the moment,” he said.
I folded my arms and glared at him. “This is important, Dad.”
The old man pulled himself up from the chair. Dr Woods had set up a little table with a few chairs, and behind them was a long line of Compounders waiting to get checked. “I’ll send a nurse down to help, Stephen.”
“There’s no need, Jonathon,” Dr Woods replied with an easy smile. “The nurses are checking people in the hospital wards. Any who don’t get seen here can pop up to the medical centre. You go on now.” He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “It’s clear that your children need you.”
I held the doctor’s stare. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, as though I was little more than an inconvenience. A bug to be squashed. Daniel took my arm and led me away.
“You don’t want to make an enemy of that man,” he whispered into my ear. “I don’t like him. He’s dangerous.”
We walked to our training barn. It was one of the few buildings which had remained dry from the rain. Dad unlocked the doors.
“We should offer the barn to those who lost their tents in the storm,” Dad said. “It’s not the most comfortable of places but it’s dry and warm.”
“Perhaps the army should offer rooms in the castle before we give up our training centre,” I said. “Seeing as they don’t seem to do much around here.”
Dad turned to face me. He had on his woollen jumper with the red and blue stripes. His glasses were pushed down to the end of his nose, and his cheeks were flushed. “What is it that you wanted, Mina?”
“We wanted to talk to you,” I said. “Daniel had a vision and we need help.” I pulled the drawing from the back pocket of my jeans. “Do you recognise this man?”
Dad pushed his glasses further up his nose and held the paper envelope out in front of him. “No, I don’t recognise this man. Daniel, what was your vision, exactly?”
“I don’t remember it all,” he said. “I was unconscious for a long time and when I woke up that was the only picture in my mind – the man with guns and the dead bodies.”
“Hmm.” Dad looked long and hard at the drawing.
While my father examined the pencil diagram I stretched out my muscles and pushed the hair back from my face. I was still sore from my encounter with Angela.
“What is that on your face?” Dad snapped. He almost dropped the picture. He grabbed my chin and pulled my face to the side to view the bruise that was no doubt forming along my cheekbone.
“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. Dad dropped my chin. “It’s Angela.”
“What about her?” Dad said.
“She’s gone mental, that’s what,” Kitty interjected. “Got herself a little posse and keeps going around beating people up. First they throw stones at Sebastian and now they’ve thrashed Mina.”
“She did that to you?” Dad asked.
I nodded, suddenly ashamed.
“What we need is someone to talk to her,” Daniel added. “We thought she might listen to you after what you did for Theresa. She looks up to you. You’re like a… well, a father to her.”
Dad exhaled through his nose, still staring down at the pencil diagram. “Whenever my back is turned there are more dramas.”
My back stiffened. “Well, sorry to inconvenience you.” I snorted. “You know, I thought you might actually jump at the chance to help me, seeing as I just got beaten up. You used to care about whether your little girl was hurt.” My voice wobbled. “Clearly I was wrong.”
Dad stared at me wide eyed. “Mina––”
“Save it.” I turned to leave but someone tried to grab hold of my elbow. I had to shake them off. My name was called, but I ignored it. I wanted to ignore everyone. I was alone.
23
When I jogged back to my trailer Ali was gathering his fabrics from the line. They were almost dry, and we’d managed to get most of the stains out. He put his wicker basket on the floor when I walked over to
him.
“Thank ye for this,” he said, his brown eyes were ringed with dark circles. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept. “It was stupid te lend them te the fete.”
“It was a lovely gesture.” I helped Ali fold the beautiful magenta piece that I’d been admiring at the fete.
“Shame it turned out te be such a disaster, ey?” He laughed. “What else d’ye expect from a piss-up in Scotland?”
“I didn’t know anything about Scotland before I moved here.” I placed the magenta scarf in his wicker basket. “And I still don’t think I know anything. How far away are the Perthans and the Highlanders?”
Ali frowned at me, his forehead creased. “What do ye know about them?”
“Daniel had a vision of a man with a machine gun and Hiro thinks it might have something to do with the threat of war between the Clans.”
Ali whistled. “Ye’s just said a lot of confidential stuff there, kid. No one is supposed te know about any Clan war. The Council has been hushing it up fer ages.”
“So they know about it?”
“Aye.”
“And they’ve done nothing? They’ve not told anyone?”
“Aye again, kid.”
“Daniel doesn’t have visions for no reason. They mean something. They mean that war is coming, and soon.”
Ali didn’t look too concerned. “It’s always coming, kid.”
“Don’t you want to do something about it?”
“What is there te do? We’re outnumbered by the Highlanders and the Perthans stick te their own. When it comes we’ll fight, we’ll lose, we’ll either run and make a new life of it or stick and get bossed around by them,” he said with a shrug.
“But what about the army?”
“I don’t know anything about them except that we can’t rely on them.” He gazed up at the sun peeking through the clouds. “I know I’d trust Mary with ma life, but I wudnae trust the Council as far as I could throw ‘em, and in the case of old Arthur, that isn’t very far.” He laughed.
“You’re wrong,” I said.
Ali looked at me, a smile playing on his lips. “Oh, is that right? A slip of a girl with just fifteen years on this planet. Ye know best do ye?”
