The Sisterhood

by A. J. Grainger

  “Cariad, we couldn’t find any leads on where she might have gone. There’s no evidence that anyone is holding your sister against her will. You know this. We searched the woods around your home, the mountains, everywhere. Nothing. It was like . . . like she just vanished.”

  “But she’s coming back!” Lil almost screamed the words. “The fact that you couldn’t find anything doesn’t mean . . . it doesn’t mean . . . She is coming back. She is. She is.”

  “Of course, sweet pea, of course.” There was no conviction in Sabrina’s voice, and Lil felt despair creeping up inside her. They’d been dancing around this conversation since Mella left, but still Lil hadn’t been able to accept it. Her sister was not dead. She had not killed herself. She hadn’t been that unhappy. They would have known—but would they, really? And would they have taken enough notice? The idea terrified Lil and she buried it deep inside her, never to think about again. She couldn’t bear it.

  Sabrina kept talking, softly, about preparing for the future, moving on, just in case. Her voice was soft but her words were too sharp, like a knife slipping under Lil’s rib cage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Someone nudged Lil’s leg, and she looked up.

  Kiran.

  Lil stood up and threw her arms around him with such force that she flung them both back against the wall.

  “Oof,” Kiran said. “Wow. Do I have a terminal disease that only you know about?”

  Lil didn’t answer. She squirmed closer, breathing in his Kiran scent of Lynx deodorant, lemons, and Tri-Flow, the stuff he used to keep his kayak rust-free. He hugged her back, and they stood like that for a long time. After a while Kiran whispered, “So what am I dying of? Is it something cool? Like I was in a fight with a shark?”

  Lil laughed and pulled away. “I needed to see you. I just didn’t realize until I saw you.”

  He touched her hand, sliding his fingers through hers. The weight of them felt good, warm. She held on, heart pounding. What was she doing? After what Kiran said earlier, it was clear how he felt about her, and this wasn’t fair. She didn’t know what she wanted. She gently let her fingers drop away from Kiran’s. The movement was awkward and unsubtle and Kiran felt it.

  “Oh,” he said, an involuntary sound, and he took his hand back.

  Lil cringed. “Sorry, I . . . I just . . .” She just what? “I don’t want to hurt you,” she finished finally.

  “So don’t.”

  “It isn’t that . . . simple. I . . . I . . . you know what I said before about you and me and about you being . . . nice?” I meant incredible, amazing.

  “You’re going to say I’m not nice?” Kiran asked. His tone was light, but Lil could hear the hurt underneath it, the embarrassment.

  “No! Of course not. You are nice, so nice. It’s just with Mella and . . . everything . . .”

  “It’s okay, Lil.” He ran his hand through his hair nervously, avoiding her gaze. “I get it. I didn’t mean to . . . to push you or make you feel awkward. I care about you.”

  I care about you, too, Lil said, but only in her head. A voice was screaming at her. It sounded a bit like Mella. Tell him! Tell him, you idiot! Lil didn’t know how, and she didn’t want to risk hurting Kiran or making a mess of stuff. She just needed to find Mella, and then everything would be clear.

  “I’m sorry,” Lil said finally, again, because that seemed to be her default response to everything.

  Kiran smiled his crooked smile, and the sight of it sent her brain into a spin. “It’s okay.” There was a pause, and then with a monumental effort that made Lil’s heart swell so much it almost exploded out of her chest, because she knew he was doing it for her, to make her feel okay, he said, feigning lightness, “So, Lilster, why you hanging out in the corridor?”

  Lil drew a deep breath and then it all tumbled out in a gush: Cai, the girl at the hospital not being Mella.

  Kiran was silent for a moment, and Lil had to remind herself that even at times like this, Kiran’s responses were always considered. Finally he swore. Loudly. Maybe “considered” was too strong.

  “Yeah,” Lil said. She slid down the wall to sit on the floor again.

  Kiran sat next to her. “I mean . . .” He swore again. “I just . . .” He ran his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Lil. I’m sorry . . . I can’t . . .”

  “It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but Lil felt she needed to say something.

  “I can’t imagine how you felt seeing that girl . . . and it not being Mella.”

  Lil drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. Kiran put his hand over hers, very lightly, just for a second, but the warmth of his skin fizzed through her. That touch said more than any words.

  They sat side by side for a while in silence, and then finally Kiran said, “I can’t believe Cai. Seriously, what a . . .” He cut himself off. “Well, you know.” He gave another crooked smile, which made Lil smile. Swearing three times in one conversation was clearly too much for Kiran. He was such a dork, a gorgeous, lovable dork.

  “Why didn’t Susie tell anyone?” he asked.

  “They agreed it was better to keep quiet, apparently. Avoid trouble. I get the impression Susie would do anything for Cai. The idiot.” Lil sounded so bitter. She didn’t really hate Cai and she certainly didn’t hate Susie. Cai was what he’d always been, and he’d done to Mella what he was always going to do.

  Why didn’t you tell me, Mells, how much you were hurting? Why did you have to be so proud and stubborn? she asked in her mind. Why didn’t you make me see that you needed help?

  I am who I am, sugar. A duck can’t change its spots.

  Leopard, Mells. Ducks don’t have spots.

  Huh. Not even teenage ones? Mella laughed loudly.

  Humor. Another thing Mella hid behind, and Lil had let her, because it had been easier than facing the truth.

  “So Mella isn’t at the Sisterhood?” Kiran asked, interrupting Lil’s train of thought.

  “No, she is. At least we think so.” Lil brought him up to speed with what Dazzle had said. “I’m so scared, K. What if something already happened? What if—”

  “Don’t think it; it’s going to be fine. Sabrina’ll go marching in there, and she’ll sort it.”

  Lil nodded. “I hope so,” she said quietly. There was a muddy stain on the jeans Sabrina had lent her, and she scratched at it with her nail. “I hear her sometimes,” she said quickly before she changed her mind. “Mella. I mean, in my head.” She didn’t look up. She was too afraid to see Kiran’s expression.

  “I used to talk to my mum too,” Kiran said gently. “After she died. I just couldn’t get my head around the fact that she was gone—I’d never see her again—so I imagined that she was still with me. I’d tell her stuff, about my day and that. I still do it sometimes.”

  “This is more than that,” Lil said. “This is, like, whole conversations. I actually hear her. I’m worried I’m going crazy.”

  “Hey,” Kiran said, “hey, look at me. You’re not crazy. Seriously, Lil, look at me.” Lil raised her head. Kiran’s eyes were shining with understanding, full of kindness and love. “Whatever makes it easier is fine. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy.”

  Lil wanted to tell him how guilty she felt for being angry with Mella that night. But she didn’t have the words, and she was too scared that Kiran would hate her for it.

  “Come on,” Kiran said, “let’s get some fresh air.”

  “We should find Seven. She’ll want to know what’s happened, and maybe she can help. She knows the compound better than anyone. The more the police know about the place, the easier it’ll be to find Mella and get everyone out safely.”

  As they stood up, Kiran pulling Lil to her feet, Sabrina reappeared. She looked harassed.

  “Everything okay with Cai?” Lil asked. “You get his story down?”

  Sabrina nodded but was clearly distracted; she barely seemed to register Lil’s question.

  “
Are you okay?” Lil asked. “Has something happened?” She was fearful suddenly. “Is it Mella?”

  Sabrina hesitated and then said, “I don’t want you to panic, but . . . it looks like we’re going to have to wait a bit longer before we go up to the Sisterhood.”

  It was a punch in the stomach. “What? No. No! You’ve got to go. Now!”

  Sabrina shook her head. “We’re really short on officers, and this sort of operation requires top-level people. We’re severely understaffed, and some of the phone lines are still down, which is making it even harder.”

  “Don’t they realize how serious this is?” Kiran asked. “Lil told me everything. . . .”

  Lil was grateful to him for speaking up. “Yes,” she added. “They’ve got to know how important this is! What Moon is planning! Sabrina!”

  “This is the highest priority. I’ve got everyone working on it. It won’t be long. Trust me.” Her phone rang, and Sabrina made an apologetic gesture as she walked back into the kitchen. “Hello? . . . Yes. . . . Right. . . . Can you say that again? You’re breaking up. . . .” Her voice was lost as she closed the door.

  “I can’t believe this,” Lil said. “How can the police not get the seriousness of it?” Kiran touched her shoulder and she turned into him, tears burning her throat. “I can’t lose her, Kiran. I can’t, not again, not again.”

  Kiran held her, and Lil wanted him to carry on doing it forever. A series of images ran through her mind: Cai knocking Mella to the ground; Mella, bloodied and tearful, at a train station; Moon picking her up, promising her a safe place. Mella screaming as the flames rose up . . .

  There was a movement behind them. Lil turned to see Seven standing in the doorway.

  “The police won’t go up there,” Seven said. There was no question in her voice.

  “You know? About Dazzle and what she said?” Lil asked.

  “Officer Burnley told me. I should never have left them. What have I done? Oh, by the Light.”

  An idea began to form in Lil’s mind. It was crazy, more than crazy: dangerous, stupid, reckless, and Sabrina would be absolutely furious. Yet once it was there, the thought grew, taking root in her brain.

  “Let’s go. The three of us,” she said quietly. “To the compound. Just to check on them. I think I know the way. If it’s right by Cragen Beach. I’ve been there loads, and we might even be able to get into the compound. We can scope it out. Call the police. Hey, we could even sneak in! Rescue Mella and whoever else ourselves.”

  There was a second’s silence as Kiran and Seven took in what she’d said.

  “Please,” Lil said. “I have to do this. I . . . wasn’t there for Mella before. I can’t let that happen again. Seven, I know—”

  Seven cut her off. “I will help you. Perhaps I can even save them. If I am truly the Light’s Gift, She will guide me.”

  “You still believe . . . even after . . . everything?” Kiran asked.

  “Yes,” Seven said solemnly. “It is the Darkness that has led the high priestess astray. The Light is good and pure and true, and it is everywhere out here, in this world that I was never meant to see. Recreants are not dangerous.” She grinned. “They are you, Lil, and you, Kiran. The Light loves you, too. She led me to you.” As if in response to her words, although Lil knew that was impossible, sunlight flooded the hallway. A star of pure white light, it turned the linoleum floor from gray to gold.

  They all gasped, and Seven smiled. “See?” she said.

  “It’s just the sun,” Lil said. “The rain’s stopped, so it was bound to come out eventually.” In her head, though, she was thinking how beautiful even this dank hallway looked in the sunshine. She remembered how the light had shone when she and Seven first met. It was stupid, impossible, and yet something in her wanted to believe just a little bit.

  Kiran reluctantly agreed to drive them to the compound but almost changed his mind when Lil told him how they were going to get there. They were going to take her aunt’s car, which was parked up against the fence. Her little Peugeot, thankfully. Kiran would definitely have refused to drive an actual police patrol car. It would be easy. Sabrina never locked it—no one did in Porthpridd—and she kept a spare set of car keys taped to the inside of the glove compartment.

  “Your aunt the police officer’s car?” Kiran said, his voice going very high pitched.

  “Yup.”

  “Your aunt the police officer, who has given you full permission to drive her car and head up to a potential hostage situation?”

  “Sure, yes,” Lil said. “If that makes you feel better.”

  Kiran groaned.

  “Look at it this way,” Lil said. “It’ll put the whole you-drove-your-dad’s-car-into-a-river thing into perspective.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lil, Kiran, and Seven drove for a long time, partly because they needed nonflooded routes and partly because none of them could read the printed map in Sabrina’s car. “There’s no arrow thing to tell you where you are,” Kiran said.

  “It’s a book!” Lil replied. “It doesn’t have GPS!”

  “Well, it should,” Kiran muttered, turning the map around for the hundredth time.

  Lil was just glad they’d managed to sneak out of the village hall and drive away without anyone noticing. As they crossed the parking lot, Lil kept expecting someone to stop them. No one did. The vicar’s wife even waved at them as she passed, arms full of blankets. “Your aunt inside?” she asked.

  Lil nodded without looking back, hoping that Sabrina’s telephone call was a long one.

  “What happens when we get to this beach?” Kiran asked now. “Are we going to be able to find the compound?”

  “I’m hoping Seven will remember the way,” Lil said quietly. She was in the front passenger seat beside Kiran, Seven was in the back. She was quiet most of the journey, staring out the window, but Lil was certain she wasn’t taking in the scenery. What was she thinking? The last time she’d come along these roads, she’d been running for her life. “Do you recognize anything?” Lil asked her.

  Seven took a moment to answer, turning to Lil slowly, as if coming from very far away. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. It was completely dark when I ran, and I was very scared.” She gazed up at the sky. “I am asking the Light for guidance.”

  Great, Lil thought, and exchanged a glance with Kiran.

  “We’ll just keep driving,” Kiran said as they passed a sign for Cragen Beach. “Up every road and lane there is around here until we find it.”

  How did she get so lucky to have a Kiran in her life? “Thank you,” she whispered, grateful he was here.

  Kiran only nodded, but his eyes were full of meaning: Anything for you, they said.

  Lil colored and turned away. There was no point denying how she felt about him.

  Finally! Mella said in her head. Kiss him already!

  Lil blushed deeper. Not yet. Not until you’re safe. Everything would wait until then.

  Oh, Mouse. What if I’m . . . ?

  Then everything will be over, and the certainty of that struck Lil with the force of a gale.

  Seven gave a shout and Lil turned around. “What?” she asked, frightened.

  “There!” Seven cried. “There! That road. I remember. I remember!”

  They’d just passed an overgrown lane, and Kiran did a U-turn to drive back to it.

  “Are you sure?” Lil asked. The path was nearly identical to about seventy million other ones they’d passed in the last hour or so.

  “Yes,” Seven said. “Look. The Light!” The clouds had broken overhead, and Lil didn’t know how it was possible, but a shaft of light was spiking the trees over them. Like a finger, it pointed down that road. She exchanged another glance with Kiran. His eyebrows were so far up his head it was a wonder they hadn’t disappeared. But he took the turning without saying anything; Seven sounded so sincere, and what else did they have to go on but her memory? And her faith, Lil added silently.

  The fading e
vening sunlight caught Lil full in the face, warming her. She drew a breath. The tension in her neck eased, and she felt hope for the first time since the journey to the hospital. It felt good to finally do something. She was going to find Mella. She was going to bring her home. She thought about what Seven had said back at the village hall, about the power of the Light. Help me find my sister, she said in her head. Please. Please.

  After driving only a short way down the road, they came to a pair of gates.

  Kiran drew the car to a stop. “This it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Seven said.

  There was a handwritten sign on one of the gates. It was covered in a plastic envelope to protect it from the weather, but the ink had still run: WELCOME TO THE LIGHT. Beyond the gates the road carried on, deep in shadow, even though it wouldn’t be dark for another four hours or so. Lil was glad of the daylight. There was something creepy about this place, which Lil would have expected, given everything that had happened here. But it was more than that somehow: an energy seeped into the trees, into the ground, even into the air. Seven made the Light sound good, but how could something like that come from this place? Evil seemed etched in the very gravel of the overgrown driveway.

  “So what’s the plan now?” Kiran asked, and his voice, jovial and aiming for brightness, sounded too loud in the small car. “Storm the castle? Save the princess. Princesses?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t really gotten past ‘Get here,’ ” said Lil. Her eyes flickered over the gateway again. Was someone watching them? Was someone standing in the shadow of that road waiting for them? Goose bumps broke out on her arms.

  “You want to drive up to the house?” Kiran asked, his tone lower now, almost a whisper, as though he was scared of drawing unwanted attention.

  “We should walk,” Seven said. “We will be quieter. It is better if Moon does not anticipate our arrival.”

  Her words hung heavy. It was reckless coming here like this. Who knew what they would find? But Mella needed her, and so Lil was going to help her, come what may.