Callum: A Noughts and Crosses Short Story

by Malorie Blackman

  ‘Sephy?’

  Oh, for God’s sake! If I had any sense, I would take off whilst I still had the chance. But even as the thought entered my head, it left again, finding no room at the inn.

  Abandon Sephy?

  Yeah, right.

  The grip on my gun tightened. Someone was watching me, I could feel it. I opened my mouth to call to Sephy, then thought better of it. The moonlight which had been my ally before was now the enemy. The moon might as well have been a spotlight. Yet directly overhead were silver-laced clouds which were thickening all the time. I edged closer to where the trees and shrubs were densest, the area in the immediate vicinity which had the most shadows. A splash of water hit my forehead – at least I hoped it was water. I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead, just as another drop touched my cheek. Great! That was all I needed. Rain!

  I needed to call out for her again. I had to risk it.

  ‘Sephy, p-please …’ Oh, God! Was that really my voice, shaky with panic?

  Where the hell was she?

  ‘Callum, I’m here.’

  The voice behind me had me whipping round, gun in hand. The moment I saw it was indeed Sephy and that she was alone, I lowered my gun.

  ‘What the hell? Didn’t you hear me calling you?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you answer?’

  No reply. She was holding a thick, stripped branch which she hadn’t had before. What was the plan? To knock me out whilst my back was turned?

  My eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, I get it. You were waiting to see if I’d brought back reinforcements.’

  ‘Why d’you do that?’ asked Sephy sadly. ‘Why d’you ascribe the worst possible motive to everything I say and do?’

  ‘Ascribe? Is that a Chivers Boarding School word?’ I mocked. ‘You’ll have to forgive me. My education didn’t get me as far as words like “ascribe”. You’ll need to use words of one syllable when you talk to me.’

  Sephy drew herself up to her full height, looking at me as if she’d never seen me before. She slowly shook her head before turning round and limping away from me, using her branch as a makeshift walking stick. The rain was beginning to make its presence felt now, like a manifestation of all the hurt between us. Sephy took a couple of steps before I ran after her.

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘Anywhere, as long as it’s away from you, before the chip on your shoulder crushes me too.’ Sephy kept moving. Every other step made her wince but she kept going. I moved in front of her. She hobbled around me.

  Damn it! Every time I opened my mouth, I managed to make things that much worse between us.

  ‘Sephy, wait.’

  ‘Callum, just point me towards the road and I’ll leave you in peace. OK?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. You won’t make more than twenty paces without my help.’

  ‘I don’t want your help. I don’t like the price tag attached,’ Sephy told me with a sudden burst of anger. ‘You say you’re helping me for what we once had and meant to each other, but that was then and this is now. You’ve gone out of your way to show me how much you despise me. Well, don’t worry, I’ve got the message. So all you need to do is tell me if I’m heading in the right direction for the road, then you’ll be rid of me for good.’

  I brushed my wet hair off my forehead. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’

  Sephy stopped walking and faced me. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  Sephy glared at me. ‘Which way to the road, Callum? Is that succinct enough for you?’

  She was talking to me like I was a moron – and I didn’t like it. But I had to admit that I’d had it coming.

  ‘Sephy, we can’t make it to the road like this. It’s too far and it’s too dangerous to attempt in the dark, especially in this rain. We’ll both break our necks if we try it.’

  ‘We don’t have any choice.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I found the shack. We should spend the night there. Once I’ve strapped up your ankle and we’ve both rested, come dawn we’ll make much better time and it’ll be easier to escape.’

  ‘How far away is this place then?’

  I was careful to hide the relief whooshing through me. Sephy was prepared to listen to reason, in spite of the antipathy she felt towards me. ‘Ten minutes, fifteen max,’ I said, deliberately underestimating the actual time it would take.

  ‘OK,’ Sephy sighed. ‘Lead the way.’

  ‘Let me help you walk,’ I said.

  ‘No thanks. I can manage.’

  ‘But you don’t have to all by yourself,’ I told her. ‘I’m here.’

  I reached out to put my arm round her waist so she could lean on me, but she vigorously pulled away.

  ‘I said I can manage,’ Sephy said, her tone so hostile I was in immediate need of an anti-venom jab. ‘I don’t want to be touched by someone who feels the need to take a shower immediately afterwards. So thanks, but no thanks.’

  We stared at each other.

  Just apologize, Callum. Just explain what’s going on in this warped head of yours …

  But I didn’t. Somehow, the words just wouldn’t come.

  ‘It’s this way,’ I said at last.

  I started walking. Sephy followed. At least we were both heading in the same direction. It was progress – of a sort.

  eight. Shelter In The Storm

  BY THE TIME we made it to the shack we were both drenched. In spite of my leather jacket, my T-shirt was soaked and my trousers felt like they’d been hosed down. My boxers were beyond soggy. They clung to my skin like they were glued. It was bloody unpleasant. I opened the door and let Sephy enter the shack first.

  ‘Well, this was certainly worth waiting for,’ Sephy said dryly.

  After over twenty minutes of walking in silence, it was a relief to hear her voice again. Our journey to the shack had been achieved without either of us saying a word. Sephy had kept a step or two behind me so that I constantly had to keep turning round to make sure she was still with me, and she gave no sign that she had the slightest interest in anything I had to say. Every time I thought to pierce the uncomfortable quiet, my mouth snapped shut again without saying a word. And every time I slowed down to at least walk in step with her, she’d slow down too so that she stayed behind me. After ten minutes, the rain was pelting down so hard, I would’ve had to shout to make myself heard anyway.

  Not fun.

  But at last we’d made it.

  Only now I wondered if I’d made the right decision. I watched as Sephy looked round, seeing it through her eyes.

  It was a hovel.

  A dank, dismal, smelly hovel.

  During my previous visit, I’d stripped the leaves off numerous branches and piled them against one wall to make a bed – of sorts – for Sephy. But now that I looked at it again, it just looked embarrassingly pathetic.

  I don’t know what I was thinking.

  ‘I know it’s not much …’ I began.

  Sephy turned to me and actually smiled. ‘It’ll do. At least it’s shelter out of the rain. I’m freezing. And at least I can rest my ankle for a while.’

  ‘It’s not exactly what you’re used to,’ I said.

  ‘Believe me, I’ll take this over the cabin with your brother and your friends any day,’ Sephy said. ‘Besides, it’s not that bad. Fix the roof, a lick of paint, some bijou furniture and there’d be no place like home.’

  I laughed, much to my surprise.

  Sephy grinned at me.

  ‘I should shut the door,’ I said doubtfully, my smile fading. ‘But once I do, it’ll be pitch black in here.’

  ‘Couldn’t we start a fire?’

  ‘There’s no chimney. And if we start a fire in the middle of the room, it’ll be like sending up a flare telling the others where we are – if we don’t burn down this place with us inside first,’ I replied.

  ‘Can we at least open the shutters, then?’

  I shook m
y head. ‘The windows are too low. We could get all kinds of animals coming in whilst we’re asleep. Plus, it would leave us too exposed if anyone were to stumble across us.’

  ‘D’you think that’s likely?’

  ‘No. The others must believe that we’re long gone by now, but there’s no harm in being careful.’

  Sephy nodded and headed for one corner of our dwelling.

  ‘You can bunk down over there.’ I pointed at the pile of leaves on the ground. ‘They’re dry at least.’

  Sephy frowned. ‘Hell, no! God only knows what they might contain. Rats or millions of creepy-crawlies – or worse.’

  ‘There’s nothing inside them.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Because I checked out the pile when I first got here.’

  ‘How much checking could you do in the dark?’ Sephy argued.

  ‘Sephy, I’m the one who put the leaves there in the first place so you’d have somewhere a bit softer than the ground to lie on. OK?’ I admitted testily.

  Sephy’s eyes held stunned surprise as she stared at me. ‘You did that for me?’

  ‘Yeah. And it’s not a big deal so don’t turn it into something it isn’t.’

  Now why the hell did I say that? Damn it!

  Sephy smiled faintly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked, my eyebrows practically knitting together.

  ‘Nothing.’ Sephy turned away from me to head for the leaves, but not before I saw the smile on her face broaden.

  She struggled to sit down so that she didn’t injure her ankle further. I took a step forward to help, but remembered what had happened the last time and froze. Sephy sat with her back to the wall, facing the front door and just to one side of the room’s shutters.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m ready now. You can shut the door.’

  ‘I’ll strap up your ankle first,’ I told her.

  ‘With what?’

  ‘I’ll use my socks,’ I told her.

  ‘Are they smelly?’

  ‘Probably. Actually, change that to definitely.’

  ‘So you’ve decided to kill me slowly by degrees instead,’ said Sephy.

  My heart hitched at that. She couldn’t still believe … ?

  No. It’d been a joke, that’s all. I needed to chill.

  ‘It’s a reflection on the nefarious way my mind works,’ I told her, attempting to reflect some of her teasing tone.

  ‘Nefarious?’ Sephy raised an eyebrow. ‘Now that’s a university word if ever I heard one.’

  ‘You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?’ I sighed.

  ‘Nope. Never,’ Sephy replied.

  ‘Not that you bear grudges or anything.’

  Sephy’s smile faded. ‘I try not to,’ she told me pointedly.

  We watched each other. I was the first to avert my gaze. I pulled off my trainers, then my socks, before slipping my shoes back on. I sniffed at my socks dubiously. They did whiff a bit – not surprisingly. I’d had them on all week.

  ‘Oh. My. God! I can smell them from here.’ Sephy gagged. She started to have a coughing fit.

  ‘Funny, Sephy.’

  Cough! ‘I’m not …’ Cough! ‘… joking!’

  I glared at her, she scowled at me. Then we both spontaneously started laughing. When our laughter faded, we were still looking at each other. I broke the spell first.

  ‘I’ll just bandage up your ankle, then you can get some sleep.’

  ‘What will you be doing?’

  ‘I’ll be keeping watch.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that …’

  ‘Seph, I’m keeping watch and that’s all there is to it. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.’

  ‘But you need to get some rest too,’ Sephy protested. ‘Why don’t you keep watch for a couple of hours and then let me take over?’

  ‘No.’ I wasn’t about to argue and I wasn’t about to budge either.

  Sephy’s puzzled frown deepened by degrees as she looked at me. ‘I’m damned if I understand your attitude. You hate my guts, you can’t stand to touch me, you hated me kissing you, and yet you tell me that you won’t let anything bad happen to me and you watch over me like a guard dog. I am officially confused.’

  ‘I don’t hate you, Sephy.’

  Sephy turned her face away from mine. ‘There’s no need to lie about it, Callum. Actions speak louder than words and I’m a big girl now. I may not like it but I can take it.’

  ‘Sephy, I don’t hate you.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Sephy scoffed. ‘So can you bear to touch my skin to strap up my ankle, or should I do it?’ She held out her hand for my socks as if my answer was a foregone conclusion.

  I sat back on my heels, ignoring her hand, and reached out to place her injured foot in my lap. Sephy inhaled with a hiss.

  ‘I’m sorry I hurt you,’ I told her without looking at her. ‘It wasn’t intentional.’

  Without waiting for a response, I eased Sephy’s shoe off her foot. A cursory examination of her ankle revealed that her Achilles tendon was enlarged and swollen, but I didn’t think anything was broken. I tried to be as gentle as possible whilst checking it, but she still ended up gasping in pain once or twice. Each time I apologized and tried to be gentler, but it still did no good. I still hurt her.

  Knotting my socks together, I started to wrap them round Sephy’s ankle and instep before tying the ends together to hold the socks tight and secure. When I’d finished, I risked a glance at Sephy. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sephy. I tried to be as gentle as I could.’

  Sephy shrugged and wiped a quick hand over her eyes. ‘It’s done now. Thanks for your help. I suppose you’d better shut the door.’

  I got to my feet and adjusted the door so that it covered most of the entrance. Kicking it in earlier hadn’t helped much with its alignment, but even a door half-hanging off its hinges was better than no door at all.

  ‘At least the rain’s easing off now,’ I told Sephy.

  The moment I propped the door over the entrance, the shadows in our room instantly took over. The roof was missing in one corner so some moonlight managed to seep into the room that way, but it was nowhere near as light as outside. I stood by the door, unsure what to do next. The dark didn’t bother me. It usually didn’t bother Sephy either. But her breathing was rapid and audible – almost like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. Though she was trying her best to hide it, she was terrified.

  That’s when it hit me.

  We’d done this to her.

  I’d done this to her.

  She’d thought she could trust me and I’d betrayed her. When we kidnapped her, we’d placed a bag over her head and kept her in the dark in the back of our stolen van as we made our getaway. Then we dumped the van and set fire to it, before manhandling Sephy into our car and making for the cabin. And what then? We’d locked her in a pit of a room with no windows and a locked door and a low-wattage light bulb that was off most of the time. Jude had physically assaulted her. I’d deliberately cut her finger as well as lacerating her with words to make her feel worthless.

  I’d done this to her.

  No wonder she was so fearful.

  I took a step towards her, then stopped. I’d made so many mistakes, I was desperate not to make another. Maybe it would be better to tell her what I intended to do first? The last thing I wanted to do was scare her even more.

  ‘Seph, I’m going to sit with you a while. OK?’

  Sephy whispered, ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re cold. I’ll sit with you until you warm up. And I … I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, not without you.’

  I made my way over to her, moving slowly and carefully. I pulled off my leather jacket, then sat down next to Sephy, my back against the wall.

  ‘Here, wear my jacket. It’ll help to warm you up.’

  ‘But what about you
?’ Sephy asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I assured her. ‘Lean forward.’

  After a moment, Sephy did as I asked. I pulled my jacket over her shoulders but as she was leaning back, I slipped my arm round her as well and moved in closer.

  ‘Callum, you don’t have to do this,’ said Sephy, trying to pull away.

  But this time I wouldn’t let her.

  ‘I know I don’t have to, but I want to,’ I replied, kissing her forehead.

  Sephy was suddenly still. Puzzled, she turned to look at me, but in the half-light of the shack it was hard to decipher her expression.

  ‘Try and get some sleep, Seph. I’ll be here when you wake up.’

  Sephy sighed. ‘I wish I could figure you out.’

  ‘I’m easy to read, like an open book,’ I told her.

  ‘Yeah, but written in an obscure alien language where the characters and symbols keep changing on the page,’ said Sephy.

  ‘OK then. Let’s play a game. Ask me anything and I’ll answer honestly.’ The moment the words left my mouth, I wondered if that was such a good idea. ‘I mean … ask me any three questions and I’ll answer honestly!’

  I felt rather than saw Sephy’s smile. ‘Could you beep when you back up fast like that?! You rethought that one sharpish.’

  ‘I think I should change it to one question, instead of three,’ I said ruefully.

  ‘No way. Too late. You said three questions and I’m going to hold you to that. But I’ll tell you what, you can ask me any three questions too. That’s fair,’ said Sephy.

  I could feel her begin to relax against me, in spite of my arm round her.

  ‘And you’ll answer them truthfully?’ I asked.

  ‘Always,’ Sephy replied. ‘So who’s going first?’

  ‘I’ll go first,’ I said quickly. ‘OK …’ My arm tightened marginally round Sephy’s shoulders. At first I stared out into the semi-darkness, trying to dredge up the courage to look at her. I turned and scrutinized Sephy, bracing myself for what I was sure I’d see once I asked my question. ‘Do you … do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?’

  Silence.

  I was asking a lot.