by Teri Terry
A mother holding her child close. Was that how things were with me and my mother? I blink hard, then stare at the window vid screen, as blank and dead as my memories of her. I close my eyes. Maybe when we see each other, it’ll all come back, like I am ten years old again. Maybe we’ll run to each other and she’ll hold me, and I’ll be home. I’ll know who I was, who I am.
Maybe, I won’t.
There is a panic inside, one that says run. That not knowing may be better than knowing; that things will change, and change isn’t always good. I’d been desperate before to know who I was, where I came from, why I was Slated. Finding out about Nico’s AGT and their plans for me didn’t make anything better, did it?
Some part of me notices that while I’ve been thinking, the train has stopped. For much longer than at any other stop. I open my eyes; the doors are still closed. We’re not at a station?
I glance about at the other passengers, and it is tangible, the growing unease. What is happening? The woman and boy get out of their seats, and walk to the connecting door to the next car at the front of ours. I’ve seen people go in and out of it, returning with steaming cups in their hands. But this time the door won’t open. They go back to their seats.
Moments later the locked door opens, and unease turns to dread. Lorders. Two of them, with steely, dead eyes. In black ops gear, vests. One has a weapon in hand, the other a small device. There is a train guard with them, a bead of sweat on his brow.
‘Get your tickets and ID out, folks,’ the train guard says, his voice not quite steady. And passengers shuffle, get cards out of bags and pockets. I get mine out, hand shaking. Get a grip. Aiden’s notes said a ticket and ID check is common. That mine’ll pass fine, to stay calm if it happens. But he never said anything about Lorders being involved.
The Lorder with the gun stays at the door; the other follows the guard. When they get to the first passenger, the guard scans his ticket and ID. Then the Lorder holds up the device he carries, and orders the passenger to look inside it until it beeps; first with one eye, then the other.
A portable retinal scanner?
This is not a standard check. Swirls of fear turn to panic. Glasses must come off to scan retinas; they’ll see my eye colour is masked. If only I’d let DJ change them to grey permanently, not mask them: vanity to keep my eyes green might kill me. I could take them off before they get here, hope they don’t notice, but then I panic further: who knows if my retinal key will show up the wrong name, that of a dead girl, Kyla Davis? We had them done at school. And at the hospital. I glance back, but there are Lorders at the back door also. Blocking the way.
Nowhere to go. Trapped. As a Slated, seeking out my past life is completely illegal. Not to mention the IMET and travelling under a false identity. After everything, is this as far as I get? Keswick should be just minutes away now. Did my fake ID trigger some warning? Are they looking for me?
They get closer, row by row. The guard checks each ticket and ID; the Lorder operates the retinal scanner.
Something bumps my foot and I almost scream. I glance down: the small boy? Crawling under the seats. Ahead they have reached his mother. Her face is beyond pale, more grey, and her shaking hand holds out ID and ticket. The guard scans them: they pass. But the Lorder’s lips curve in a small smile of satisfaction. He knows. He is certain he’s found the one he looks for. It’s not me. He holds up the retinal scanner to her eye. Instead of a beep, it buzzes. His smile widens.
His hand clamps on her shoulder, pulls her up. Pushes her into the aisle. ‘Walk!’ he barks. They start towards the front of the car. There is a small cry behind. I don’t dare turn, but she does, and her face crumples. Moments later one of the Lorders from the back of the car walks past, dragging a small boy along with him.
They disappear through the front connecting door. No one says anything; no one looks at anyone. I’m horrified, but also relieved. They weren’t after me. Not this time. But if my seat had been before hers, and they’d scanned my retinas…I quake inside.
And then I’m ashamed. What will happen to them now? I’ll never know if she did anything bad enough to warrant being hauled off by the Lorders like that; I’ll never know what happens to her, or her son. What if everyone in this car had said, together: no, you can’t take them. Could we have stopped it?
The answer might have been yes, for a few minutes. But they’d have reinforcements at the next station; we’d all be arrested and taken away. We’d face the same fate she will. Is that a good enough reason to say nothing?
What if every person in the country said no, all at once, like Aiden thinks they will if they know what really goes on. They can’t arrest every single one of us.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
I step out of the dim station lift into dazzling sunshine. Keswick sunshine. It is cold, crisp; the air is so chill that breathing it in almost makes me cough. No snow on the ground here today, but above? White-peaked fells. There is a prickle on the back of my neck, my spine, but not from the cold. It is a physical reaction to being in this place, to breathing this air. I stand stock still, gaping up at the mountains, until a whisper of sanity draws me back to here and now. Don’t draw attention. I force my eyes to drop and look around me.
Only a few other passengers have come off here, and they are walking swiftly away. There is a Lorder van parked next to the station, blocking the view of one of the lifts: are they taking their new prisoners from the train? I walk away from any watchful eyes. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I find and follow the town centre sign Aiden’s notes said would be there. There is no recognition inside me now, of this station, or where to go. I glance back, and over the archway containing the lifts and ticket office is carved ‘2050’. This station didn’t exist when I lived here. It’s new.
Ten minutes later I’ve reached the centre of town, and the prickling feeling of wonder, of both knowing and not knowing this place, comes back. There is a crowded pedestrianised area leading up to the ancient Moot Hall building with an information sign. Cobbled stones crumble under foot, with a vague sense they are smaller than they should be. Because I’m bigger now?
I shake my head. Am I imagining things? There is no definite memory, only shadows that seem to mist away if I stare. Maybe it is just the longing to know this place.
On arrival in Keswick I’m to go to Waterfall House. And my mother. I swallow; the word sounds all wrong. The house is along the shores of Derwentwater, on almost the opposite side of the lake from Keswick. I memorised maps how to get there: about three miles’ walk on footpaths. Or there is a launch across the water. Or a bus on the road.
Walking takes longest. Walk it is. Roads then paths lead out of the town centre, past a ruined theatre and down to the lake; paths wander through woods with views over the lake, then drop to cut down to the water. There is ice silvering out from its deep blue edges; the ground underfoot is hard frozen. There are people, some with dogs, ambling on paths in all directions, breath puffing out white around their faces. They dwindle away the further I get from Keswick. Soon I’m alone.
My feet move slower and slower, head full of a peculiar madness. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I want to touch every tree, every rock, on the way. I want to know them, to take them into me so they cement out whispers of memory. My head feels full of fuzzy cotton confusion, of wanting to remember being here before, but nothing is definite. It could just be the wanting that makes me feel this way, that makes my feet long to walk back and forth over the same places to make me remember them, if not from before, from now.
I shake my head. Aiden told me she knows I am coming: she’ll wonder what has happened to me…again. I start walking at a proper pace. What could it have been like for her? For my mother. I say the words over and over inside my head, tasting them, but they still don’t feel right, don’t sound right. I’m her daughter – that feels weird, too. I di
sappeared when I was ten years old. Seven years ago. How do you get through something like that? And then her husband died, a few years after I vanished, when he tried to rescue me. My fault. She might blame me.
And so my feet go faster and slower and faster again for the rest of the walk, as my thoughts tumble inside. When I finally see the house in the distance, my feet stop completely. From Aiden’s file I know it used to be Lodore Falls Hotel; Waterfall House for Girls it is called now. The exterior covered in Lake District grey slate fits the foreground of lake and woods rising behind it, the snow-touched fells beyond. It is warm from this distance, like a soft-focus, dreamy castle, even though I know much of it was destroyed in the riots decades ago, then rebuilt with more concrete and less slate. I carry on. The closer I walk, the harsher it looks.
When I finally reach the house, I hesitate at the door. This is it. Will she know me? Will I know her? Eagerness and fear war inside of me, laced with caution. As Aiden’s notes pointed out, many girls live here. None of them can realise what we are to each other.
Do I knock? Go in?
As if to answer my question the door opens, and a girl steps out. She nods and keeps going. I walk in the door before it swings closed.
There are other girls in the entrance area. Two in chairs, chatting. A woman stands near a large desk. She is tall; long blond hair swept back, dark roots peeking through; thin, maybe forty years old. Neatly, very neatly dressed. Even her buttons shine. Is it her? Nothing about her is familiar. I walk up to the desk.
‘Yes?’ she says.
‘Uh, hi. I’m Riley Kain. I think I’m staying here.’
‘You’re late. I was about to send some of the girls out to look for you in case you got lost in the woods.’ Is it her, my mother? Her lips are pursed, words calm and clear, but her eyes sweep over me with both longing, and confusion. She expects me to be blond, to have green eyes. She doesn’t know about the IMET?
With my back to the other girls, I take my glasses off, as if to rub my eyes. Green eyes. Hers widen slightly. I put the glasses back on.
‘Your ID?’ she says, and I take it out. She scans it into a netbook, hand shaking slightly. ‘You are indeed staying with us, Riley. I’m Stella Connor. You can call me Stella.’
I stare back at her. Stella Connor: Lucy Connor’s mother. But nothing about her or the name is familiar, and bitter disappointment at the lack of memory gnaws inside.
‘You’ve missed lunch, I’m afraid. Tea is here in the conservatory at four, and dinner in the hall at seven. Here is your list of rules.’ She hands me a substantial number of sheets stapled together, touching my hand as she does so. ‘We’ll talk tonight,’ she adds, her words such a quiet whisper that I’m not sure I heard or imagined them.
‘Madison?’ she calls out, and one of the girls looks up. ‘Can you show Riley to her room, please. The tower.’
The girl bounces out of her chair: cute with dark curly hair, not much taller than me, a mischievous glint to her eyes. She walks over. ‘Sure thing, Mrs C.’
Stella’s eyes narrow. Not happy with the Mrs C thing.
‘This way!’ Madison says, with a dramatic flourish. I follow her through a door, down halls to stairs. She looks back. ‘Take her to the tower!’ she mimics, one finger pointing dramatically at the staircase, her voice so like Stella’s that I have to laugh.
At the top of the stairs Madison flings the door open. ‘I can’t believe she’s put you in the tower. It’s been empty for ages. She only let one person stay here a while last year, and that was just because a bunch of rooms were wrecked in floods and all the other rooms were full, and as soon as one was empty she shifted her out.’
‘How many stay here?’ I ask as I walk in, put my bag on the bed.
‘Not so many now. Including you, there are, I believe, seventeen of us. Everyone leaves Waterfall Weirdo if they can get a place anywhere else.’
‘Why Weirdo?’
‘You met the Queen of the Weird downstairs, didn’t you notice? Wait til you read the list of rules.’ She takes it from my hand and brandishes it before putting it on the desk by the bed. ‘Break any of the rules at your peril,’ she says in her Stella mimic voice, and I try not to smirk: that is my mother she is making fun of. ‘And then there is her family.’ She rolls her eyes.
Family? Do I have other family? ‘Why? Who are they?’ I ask, trying to not look too curious.
‘Her mother is the JCO for all of England. Not somebody you want to be in the same room with. Thankfully, she hardly ever visits.’
JCO? I stare at her in shock. I have a grandmother. And my grandmother is not only a Lorder, but a Juvenile Control Officer, and not only that, but for all of England? My mouth falls open.
Madison doesn’t seem to notice. ‘What are you doing in Keswick, anyhow?’
‘I’m here for the apprenticeship intake.’
‘CAS? That starts tomorrow, doesn’t it?’
I nod. There was an outline of the scheme in Aiden’s notes, and it was the reason for my hasty trip up here: to make it for the first day. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m working at Cora’s Cafe. It’s my day off today. Can’t wait until I’m twenty-one next summer so I can get out of here. I’d just moved into this fab flat with three others when they brought in that latest stupid YP law two years ago, and we had to give it up.’
I look at her blankly.
‘Don’t you even know why you’re staying here? JCO Young Persons Law 29(b).’ She stands up bolt straight. ‘Thou shalt live either with family or in approved structured accommodation with supervision until the age of twenty-one,’ she intones in a nasal voice, then pretends to strangle herself. ‘What do they think we’ll get up to? It’s not like there is much of anything to do in Keswick, even if we weren’t stuck out here.’
Madison opens a door to show me my en suite. ‘You may be on your own in the tower, but at least you don’t have to share your bathroom. Don’t miss rule nine: no more than five minutes per shower. If you go over she turns the hot water off for the whole house for a day. Somehow, she always knows. She does randoms, too: walks the halls in the middle of the night at odd times, to make sure you don’t breach rules six or eleven.’
‘Thanks.’ I smile, look at her. Please leave. I need to be alone a while.
She must see it on my face. ‘You want me to go, right.’
‘Ah…’
‘No worries. See you at tea downstairs at four. Don’t be late: rule number two.’
Alone at last, I circle the room: a double bed, an empty wardrobe, a desk and a chair. More wardrobes across the room – locked. And a lot of empty space: it’s a big room. Did this use to be Lucy’s room – my room – is that why Stella keeps it empty? I shrug. No idea. Nothing in it feels familiar.
I pull the curtains open wide. There are windows all around: lake one side, woods the other. Gorgeous views, and I close my eyes, try to imagine this room and me in it, younger, looking out the window with my dad, but can’t.
There is an odd noise at the door: scratching? A grey paw reaches underneath. I open it.
A grey cat looks up at me, then pushes past through the open door. Takes a running leap at the bed and sits there daintily, washing one paw, her green eyes on me all the while.
Lucy’s grey kitten, her tenth birthday present – one of the very few memories I’ve had of being her since I was Slated. Is it…this cat?
I walk over to the bed, sit on the other end cross-legged. ‘Is it you?’ I whisper. She stalks across the bed, walks all around me in a circle as if checking me out thoroughly. I hold out one hand, and she rubs her chin against it. Soon I’ve coaxed her onto my lap; I stroke her and she curls up, purring.
The list of rules is next to me where Madison left it, and I pick it up, look at the first page. Rule one: Be nice to Pounce (the cat).
Well. Stella might be a little weird, but given what she puts as rule number one, maybe she and I will get along all right, after all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
I make it to tea at exactly one minute to four, stomach rumbling. Madison and the girl I saw her with earlier are there, and two others; there is no sign of Stella, and I’m told the others are at work in various places around Keswick. There is a teapot, and a plate of warm scones with jam we all swoop on with delight. They usually just get dry biscuits at tea, Madison tells me, and I wonder: is this a special treat for me?
After they give me a quick tour of the place. There is a TV room with sofas and fireplaces, a library, and a dining room with one long table already set for dinner.
I wander back to my room to unpack. When we assemble for dinner at seven, Madison pulls me into a seat next to hers. Soon all but two seats are taken. There is a sea of friendly, curious eyes, and names are called out, too many to remember at once. And it all seems…nice. Cosy. Not a place to try to get away from.
Stella walks in as a clock chimes seven, and chatter quiets down. She takes the empty chair at the end of the table. She looks at the other empty seat, and frowns. ‘Does anyone know where Ellie is?’ There is a murmur of no, shaken heads.
‘Maybe she’s not hungry. Maybe she’s not well. Maybe she found something better to do,’ Madison says, and the room falls silent.
Stella frowns. ‘Then she should have sent word. Could someone check her room, please?’
