“Yes, I told you that already.” Lil knew she sounded rude, but she didn’t want to answer any more questions. She wanted Sabrina to focus on her sister. “What are you going to do about Mella?”
“I’m going to send a team up to Seven’s home as soon as I know where it is. I know this is frustrating, going over the same thing, but the more information we have, the more chance we have of finding this group, and without a location, I can’t do much.”
“But what about the group from a few years back?”
“I asked Caerwen about them, but by all accounts, they’ve moved on. We’ll obviously follow up, see if we can find out where they went, but . . . I don’t know. It would be hard enough without this storm. They might not even be part of the same group.”
Lil nodded, although she was frustrated, more with herself than anyone else. She had been naive to think that Sabrina would be able to find this place with so little information. She’d just hoped the police would have a database or something, but what? A database required data, and they didn’t exactly have much to go on.
“Did she give you any idea about which direction she came from?”
“I didn’t ask.” Lil mentally kicked herself for not pressing Seven for more details.
“Where was she coming from when you found her in the road?”
“The Sisterhood, I guess, but she didn’t say anymore.” Lil felt like she’d asked Seven all the wrong questions, but as soon as she’d heard about the ceremony, everything else had left her head. “I just wanted to get to you as quickly as I could.”
“Of course, darling. You think a car hit her?”
“No. She fell down the bank, I reckon. You know it’s steep there and probably slippery when it’s wet. There were a load of broken branches.”
“Why didn’t you call anyone? An ambulance?”
“I tried. I mean, I would have, definitely, but my phone got smashed when I fell off my bike.”
“You know it’s incredibly dangerous to move someone after an accident?” Sabrina said. “This is very serious, Lil. You could have done real damage!”
“I know.” Lil plucked at the sleeve of her sweater. “I’ve been so stupid. I should have told you last night when you called, but she threatened to run if I told anyone.” Lil dropped her eyes to the table. She had a terrible thought. If she’d spoken up sooner, could they have saved Mella by now? If only Seven had told her more last night . . . Lil shook herself. It was pointless to think like that, but she couldn’t help it.
“And Kiran, was he with you when this happened?”
“No,” Lil said quickly. “He came around after. He wanted me to tell you. It was my decision not to. He doesn’t have anything to do with this. I don’t want to get him in trouble.” Lil shivered again. She was still so cold.
“Do you want another blanket?” Sabrina asked gently. “Are you all right? You must be worn out.”
Lil shook her head. She was tired, but she wanted to finish this. “Will Seven be okay? The cut on her head? It didn’t look so serious once I’d cleaned it, and she seemed fine. No obvious signs of concussion, but I would feel awful if something happened because I . . . I did the wrong thing.”
“We think she’ll be fine,” Sabrina said. “Nothing’s broken, and she doesn’t seem to have done any permanent damage to her head, but she has got a nasty bump. You should definitely have called in the emergency services or me, but you looked after her pretty well on your own. You kept her safe.” Sabrina smiled gently but distractedly. She was in police officer mode. She tapped her nail against her teeth, something she always did when she was thinking. “You said Seven mentioned maybe being followed, by this high priestess?”
Lil shook her head. “Not her. Seven said she’d send someone else, someone worse. I can’t remember the name she gave. It was long.” Lil thought for a second. “Evanescence,” she said. “I think.”
“And did you see anyone? Either on the road when you found Seven or later at the house?”
“No. But . . .” How to explain her feelings? “It felt like we weren’t alone. I didn’t actually see anything, not properly, but I just sensed there was someone else there.” Lil paused. She wasn’t clarifying this well. “And when I was in the yard last night, I thought maybe I saw . . . I don’t know . . . someone. But it was dark. And . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
Sabrina frowned. “Our brains can play all sorts of tricks when we’re—”
Lil cut her off, irritated. “I didn’t imagine it. I can’t tell you what I saw, but I know it was real. I’m sure there was someone in the yard, watching us, watching the house. And Seven said Moon would send someone after her.” Lil shuddered at the memory of that flash of white in the yard. What had that been? A trick of the light? No, definitely not. Someone had been there; she knew it.
“Well,” Sabrina said, “you’ll be safe here; there are lots of people around. No one will be able to get in here without someone noticing.” It was clear she disregarded Lil’s concerns as fancy. Sabrina didn’t go in for sensing things; she liked cold, hard facts: witness statements that included height, weight, eye and skin color, clothing, and preferably an exact time and location.
“I can’t give you more details, but it was real,” Lil said with passion. Sabrina pressed her lips into a line, and Lil sighed and changed the subject. It was pointless to argue with her aunt about this. There were other, more important things to discuss. “What are you going to do to find this place?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. There’s not a lot to go on, but I’ll do whatever it takes.” Sabrina rubbed her eyes. There were dark circles under them. She’d clearly been up most of the night. “You should go and have a rest after you’ve eaten something.” The remains of Lil’s sandwich sat on the table between them, along with the cooling cup of tea. Lil couldn’t eat them, her stomach replaced by a stone.
Sabrina touched her cheek. “Oh, cariad, this is hard on you.”
Lil drew back. She was close to tears, and Sabrina’s kindness was making it worse. “Have you heard from Mum? Is she okay?”
“Yes, she called very early this morning, about five.”
“Really? How? I thought the phone lines were down.”
“We’ve got the emergency ones working and, thank God, the backup generator in this place.”
“And she’s all right?” Lil asked. “Mum?”
“Yes, pet, don’t worry. She stayed over in Chester. Roads were a mess. She’s going to try to get back today. I reassured her that all was fine.”
“She must have been worried when she couldn’t get me on my mobile or the landline.”
Sabrina smiled gently. “We kept in touch. She’s okay. Honest.”
“I should call her. Can I borrow your phone?”
“Of course. But it might be best not to mention anything about Mella for the moment, okay? We don’t want to get her hopes up. You know how hard she finds these false leads.”
• • •
Lil went outside to make the call because the signal was stronger. It was still raining, and the low-slung clouds turned everything a murky gray. The trees around the parking lot threw long shadows, concealing anything that stood among them. Remembering that pale, ghostly figure in the yard, Lil shivered and stayed close to the door of the hall. But surely, no one could have followed them here. If there had even been someone at the house.
She dialed her mum’s number, thinking about what Sabrina had said about not mentioning Mella. That would be hard, but Lil knew it was right. She didn’t want her mum to worry.
Her mum answered after one ring. “Sabrina! Have you found her? Is she okay?”
“She’s okay,” Lil said.
“Oh, Lili! I’ve been so worried. I couldn’t get through to you—”
“I know, Mum. My phone got smashed.” She had no intention of telling her mum anything else that had happened. Sabrina was right; it would only send her into a panic.
“When? How? Were you
in an accident? Are you all right?” Her mum’s voice rose several octaves. In her mind Lil saw her mum’s hand tightening around the handset.
“I fell off my bike, but no permanent damage. How are you?”
“Better now I’ve spoken to you. I didn’t sleep last night.”
“But Sabrina told you I was okay?”
“I was still worried. I wanted to drive right back, but Sandi and Sabrina said I should wait. That the roads weren’t safe.”
“You did the right thing staying there.”
“Are you sure? I think I should head back now, but I’m so tired.”
“Then stay. Get some sleep. Drive later. The roads might be clearer then.”
“Do you think so? I guess you’re probably right. You’re so clever and sensible, Lils. Sandi suggested that too, but I feel better hearing it from you. You always know best. I don’t know what I’d do without you. If anything happened to you . . .” Her voice broke.
“Nothing is going to happen to me, Mum. All’s good here. Now rest up a bit. That’s an order!”
Her mum laughed. “Okay, Mouse.”
The sound of Mella’s nickname made Lil’s throat dry.
“You’ll stay with Sabrina?” her mum asked.
“Like a shadow.” Lil paused and then asked, “Has Dad called?” She tried for lightness, but the question rang heavy anyway.
There was a pause. “I doubt news of the storms has hit Australia yet. They are, what, seven hours ahead in Sydney?”
“Nine.” You shouldn’t have to wait for the international news to inform you about your daughter.
Their dad had done very little when Mella ran away. Lil had stood on the landing and overheard her mum talking to him the week after Mella went missing, when they’d finally managed to pin him down. He’d been rehearsing with the orchestra in some remote backwater in Australia, or that’s what Lil gathered from her mum’s side of the conversation.
“I’m not being hysterical. Gareth, please . . .” Her mum’s voice broke. “I don’t know what to do. I’m so worried about her. She could be anywhere. . . . I don’t know. They’re trying. But they . . . she took some belongings with her, clothes and that. Some money. They think she’s run away, because she’s done it before. But Mella always came back. She’s never been away this long. She would call. I know she would. . . . I just . . . I thought maybe she might come to you. Or that maybe you would know what to do. . . . Please, don’t shout. Gareth, please, I didn’t know what else to do.”
Their police liaison officer said that Lil’s father might have trouble seeing Mella’s disappearance as “real.” “Because he’s so far away. It might be easier for him to just pretend it hasn’t happened. Put it out of his mind. He doesn’t know how to handle it.”
Because of course Mum and I know exactly how to handle it, Lil thought sarcastically.
Secretly she hoped her dad would swoop in and make everything better, like when she was five and he immediately picked her up after she fell. Because she really didn’t know how to handle this either. She desperately wanted someone else to pick her mother up off the floor, take her into the kitchen, and make her a cup of tea (that she wouldn’t drink) and some toast (that she wouldn’t eat). And hold them both while they cried.
But there wasn’t anyone else. So it didn’t matter what Lil wanted.
Lil walked down the stairs to her mother and took the receiver out of her hand. “Call us if she gets in touch,” she said to her father. Then she hung up. She hadn’t spoken to him since.
Because not knowing what to do was not an excuse to do nothing.
We do not seek knowledge, lest we stumble blindly into Darkness.
—THE BOOK
Mella tore through the trees, panic-horror-terror fueling the adrenaline gushing through her veins. She was no longer Brilliance; she’d cast that name aside when Luster had told her what was going to happen to Dazzle.
The forest floor was uneven, strewn with undergrowth and bracken that seemed to be deliberately twisting around Mella’s ankles. She tripped countless times—her legs were scratched, one knee bleeding—but she didn’t let it slow her down. She hurtled across the ground. As she broke through a patch of densely packed trees, she saw it, flickering in between the branches, silhouetting their slender arms: an orange glow. The Sun’s fire. They’d already lit it.
Mella put on an extra burst of speed, which two seconds ago she would have said was impossible. Don’t let me be too late, please, please. The fear lent wings to Mella’s feet, and she flew over the last couple of hundred meters, with no stumbling on the rutted ground, no clutching of her ankles by weeds or bracken.
She pulled up to a stop at the edge of the Sun’s clearing, breathing heavily, assessing. Relief was a cool balm to her tight chest and aching limbs: There was Dazzle. Moon stood on one side and Evanescence on the other. Mella had no idea when Evanescence had come back. She wished she hadn’t.
The three of them stood with their backs to Mella. Some of the other sisters were in a semicircle on the opposite side of the fire; all were dressed in brightly colored tunics, the painted suns on their cheeks. Luster had said that they would be there as witnesses of the Light. It made Mella sick to think that they were just going to stand and watch Dazzle be tortured.
She had to catch them off guard, grab Dazzle somehow, and run. Then what? She didn’t know exactly. Keep running, she supposed, until they could get to safety. Since she arrived, she’d left the compound only twice. They just had to keep going, head for a main road, and hope they came across a car that would give them a lift.
As Mella stood watching, Moon raised her hands. “Sing, my sisters,” she cried. “Sing the Light into being.”
The Sisterhood began to dance and sing, their colored gowns swinging out wide around them.
“I dance with the fire in my heart.”
For a moment Mella was caught up in the dance, eyes catching on the flames, the way they moved like liquid. The peace came over her, a oneness with everything. Her eyelids were heavy. It was hard to focus. She breathed deeply, the familiar heavy air. . . .
Her eyes flew open again. The incense in the seven stakes around the fire . . . it smelled so sweet, too sweet. It got in your head, right in there, and it made your senses dull, sluggish. Like the time Mella tried a joint at Cai’s. It made her feel heavy, out of her own body. She hated it. This was the same feeling. How had she not realized it before? Moon was drugging them! That was the communion with the Light, that was the feeling of otherworldliness.
Mella dragged her sleeve over her hand and covered her mouth, trying to breathe shallowly and as little as possible. Her head cleared a little, but it still felt like she was moving through a woolen blanket.
A bird cried and then Moon’s voice cut across the clearing: “We must help our sister Dazzle out of the Dark and into the Light, so she is pure enough for the Light’s eternity.”
As one, the sisters began to move, circling around the fire toward Dazzle. Moon gripped one arm, Evanescence the other, and Mella’s fear became a fire. It rose up from her belly, burning as it went, until a scream shot from her mouth: “Stop!”
Everyone turned to Mella as she strode out from the shade of the trees. The sisters’ eyes were wide, Moon had one eyebrow raised, as cool as ever, Dazzle’s mouth had opened in a little O, and Evanescence looked furious. “How dare you interrupt your sister’s cleansing!” she shouted savagely, baring her teeth. “Do you want her to perish in the Darkness?”
“It’s all right, sister.” Moon was as cold and distant as the stars, and all of Mella’s hope about her disappeared. How could she have been so blind? But there was no time to consider that now. “Sister Brilliance,” Moon said, “please join your sisters. You can be witness too.”
“My name is Mella.”
The Sisterhood gasped as one. It was forbidden to reveal your Dark name. To do so in the presence of the Light was sacrilege.
“I’m not going to let you hurt Dazzle,
” Mella said.
“Hurt her?” Moon laughed like it was the funniest joke ever. “I’m going to save her.”
“You’re going to kill her,” Mella said. “She’ll never be able to stand it.” To Dazzle she said, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but”—Mella drew a deep breath and forced the words out—“you’re going to die, Dazzle. She’s going to . . . to burn you in there.” She pointed at the bonfire.
Another collective intake from the sisters, whether from the idea of Dazzle being burned or from Mella’s interruption of the ceremony and blasphemy against the Light, she couldn’t tell.
Dazzle merely bowed her head. “It is the Light’s way. I’m full of Darkness. I must be cleansed.”
Mella was overwhelmed with sadness and sympathy for Dazzle. “You are not full of Darkness, Dazzle. Don’t listen to them. Please. This isn’t right!” Mella was surprised how sure she felt about that. Usually she was so uncertain about everything, but she knew with crystal clarity that this was wrong. Then the full horror hit her; Moon had not lied to Dazzle. She had not told her she would survive this. She’d convinced her that this was the only way: to die in agony so that she might achieve eternal Light. Somehow the brutality, the cunning, of that, the years of abuse and manipulation that must have been involved, were so much worse.
Mella moved. She had no plan other than to get Dazzle away from this woman who had brought her up to die, to willingly die as though her life meant nothing. Mella didn’t know what she was going to do as she flung herself at Moon. It didn’t matter, because Evanescence was there, snarling, teeth bared, arms like a wall defending her high priestess.
The Sisterhood Page 12
