‘I might be bluffing,’ I said.
‘Aha,’ he said craftily, taking a card from the fresh pile and throwing a ten of diamonds. He stared at me intensely, waiting to see what I would do.
I took the ten.
‘Aha! Yer were bluffing! Yer after the jools!’
‘It might be a double bluff.’ I threw out a three of spades.
‘Hmmph,’ he grunted. ‘Why are yer interested in the old dragon anyhow?’
It took me a second to switch from cards to Anna Galway.
‘I just wanted to ask her about her old school,’ I said.
Mr Pellman took a card from the fresh pile and discarded it. I swapped a club for a smaller club.
‘I wouldn’t.’ Mr Pellman took up my discarded club and threw a heart. I took up the heart and swapped it for the ten of diamonds.
‘Why not?’
‘Painful memories,’ Mr Pellman said. ‘Painful memories.’
‘I heard… I heard she witnessed a murder when she was a kid.’
Mr Pellman took a card and swapped it for one in his hand. ‘Yeah. Remember that myself. It was a big deal. All the papers had it on the front page. That kid over in Cheshunt burned a caretaker to death.’
I blinked. The security guard at the school had mentioned the death of a caretaker. It had to be the same one.
I took a card and discarded it without noticing what it was.
‘Horrible way to die,’ Mr Pellman said soberly, taking up my discard.
‘I saw men die that way in the war. That’s why I’m not going for cremation. My wife was cremated but I ain’t going out in a blaze. Soon enough to burn after I die.’ He leered at me wickedly and lay his hand down with a flourish. ‘Thirty-one.’
I looked at my own hand. I had a two of clubs, a three of hearts and a ten of spades. A score of fifteen. I sighed and passed in one of my three matches.
‘Come on. Deal,’ Mr Pellman said gleefully.
‘Do you know why that kid killed the caretaker?’
‘Huh? Oh, dunno. I read he was friends with the old guy. Maybe they had a fight.’ He frowned at his cards.
‘What about Anna Galway?’ I took up a ten of spades, giving myself a respectable score of twenty-five. I didn’t want him to see how shaken I was.
Mr Pellman eyed my discard, then took a card off the fresh pile, discarding a two of spades. I took it up. Twenty-seven.
‘Shovels! Yer after shovels. Yer’ll get no more from me!’ He took up another from the fresh pile and grinned. ‘Ahh. Now yer sunk.’ He threw a heart.
I knocked.
‘What!’ Mr Pellman squawked.
‘You get another card.’
He snorted, taking one from the fresh pile. It brought him up to my score.
‘Ha! Cooked yer own goose. We both lose a match. That means yer’ve got one left.’
‘Never say die,’ I said, passing the pile over to him.
‘Anna Galway was a police witness,’ Mr Pellman said, dealing.
‘Then, she actually saw him kill the old guy?’
‘I guess. She didn’t testify in the end but that’s what the papers said. But who knows. Women’s lie,’ he said in a confiding voice. ‘They lie a lot, and they’re better at it than men.’
‘But why would she lie about a thing like that?’
‘Not sayin’ she did, only that she might have done.’
I decided the crafty old devil was trying to distract me. ‘What happened to the kid who did it? Did he go to gaol?’
‘I guess. Or maybe one of them boys’ homes. Detention centres.’
I took another card, thinking I had come a long way from the school oral history project, and maybe I was letting some of the weird things that had happened in the last few days get to me. You often hear a strange name, then just by coincidence, you hear it again the very same day.
I decided it would be best if I just bumped into Anna Galway. If she was as bad-tempered as Lilly and Mr Pellman said, she was sure to refuse to let me interview her for the assignment.
‘What does she do then, if she doesn’t come here? Does she just sit in her room?’
‘Eh?’
‘Anna Galway.’
‘Oh. Don’t know why yer so interested in the old prune face. Why don’t yer chat up some of these young nurses?’ He worried a lot about me not having a girlfriend yet. The week before he even tried telling me about sex. For about ten minutes I thought he was describing a yoga exercise. It was kind of embarrassing but he was a nice old guy. ‘She stays in her room of a night. Reads. Sometimes I seen her in the library, but mostly, if the weather’s right, she goes in the garden.’ His eyes widened. ‘I got it. Yer after shovels, ain’t yer!’
‘Nathanial?’ It was one of the nurse assistants. ‘Your mother said you have to catch the bus now. I’ll drive you to the bus stop.’
I stood up. ‘I guess you win by default.’
Mr Pellman glared at the nurse. ‘Not the same. Can’t have any fun. It’s like a prison camp …’ he muttered blackly.
‘I’ll see you next time,’ I called, but he was busy examining my hand. ‘Aha!’ he shouted as we left the hall.
The street was deserted when I got off the bus. The doors closed behind me with an hydraulic hiss, and the bus lurched off noisily, wheezing fumes. I started to walk, thinking about the oral history project. The truth was, I had become curious about that old murder. Maybe because of the connection with Three North.
I took a short cut down the same lane Indian used. At the other end, I was surprised to hear voices. It sounded like a group of older kids just past the place where the lane came out. I slowed down.
‘He wasn’t home,’ someone said.
‘We’ll come back in half an hour and try again.’
I stiffened, recognising Buddha’s gravel voice.
‘What’s he done anyway?’ asked a younger boy.
‘Nothing. We’re supposed to convince him to join the Gathering. That’s all.’
Someone giggled and there was the sound of a slap.
‘Idiot,’ Buddha snarled. ‘He said convince, not pulverise.’
A horrible suspicion began to form in the pit of my belly.
‘What does it matter if he joins or not?’ someone asked.
‘Mr Karle reckons he might be a trouble maker. He wants him under control.’
I swallowed a dry lump in my throat and began to back away.
‘You keep an eye on him tomorrow, all of you. We have to find out who his friends are. Mr Karle reckons they might be the ones who broke in the museum. We don’t want bad kids like them in Cheshunt.’
They all laughed.
When I judged I was far enough away, I hiked back down the lane and into the street. I thought of calling my mother but knew she wouldn’t believe me. I could hardly believe it myself.
Why was Mr Karle trying to force me into joining the youth club? But worse by far, he was trying to find out who I hung around with. Just as Nissa had feared.
I had to warn the others.
I started to run.
12
‘What were the police doing at your place last night?’ Nissa demanded accusingly.
‘My mother called them because I was out so late.’ I explained about the altered shifts. ‘How did you know they came?’
‘One of the school patrol kids was talking about it,’ Indian said.
‘What did you tell them?’ Nissa asked sharply. ‘You didn’t mention any of us did you?’
‘Name, rank and serial number,’ I said, resenting the way she was interrogating me.
She scowled. ‘You think this is a joke? This puts all of us in danger.’
I stood up angrily. ‘Maybe I’d better go then.’
Indian touched Nissa’s arm. ‘It’s not his fault if his mother rang the police.’
‘Maybe not, but if the Kraken suspects and starts watching him, we’re all in trouble. Lallie said not to call any attention to ourselves.’
‘I didn’t invite them! I told them I’d gone for a walk.’
Nissa snorted. ‘I’m sure they believed you.’
I suppressed a surge of anger because she was right about them not believing me. ‘I didn’t tell them anything.’
There was a loud clattering sound on the roof and I looked up.
‘Rain,’ Indian murmured. ‘Lallie says it will go on all night.’ He looked across to the bed where the odd little blonde girl lay staring up at the roof.
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘She’s fine, no thanks to you,’ Nissa said.
I thought suddenly of Buddha staking out the house. Nissa had launched into me before I could tell them about it. The anger faded from her face as I told them what I had overheard.
Outside the rain drumming on the roof increased in force.
‘It still doesn’t have to mean he knows Nathanial is one of the ones called,’ Indian said slowly.
‘It means he suspects. That’s bad enough. For all we know, it might be all that he needs to figure out who we are,’ Nissa said.
‘Buddha is one of the Kraken’s fixers,’ Danny said darkly. ‘One of these days I’ll fix him.’
‘Buddha said the Kraken wanted me in because I was a trouble-maker.’
‘Trouble-makers who join the Gathering get fixed,’ Danny pointed out.
I thought of something else. ‘I overheard the Kraken talking about me today. He knew about the police coming to my house too.’
‘The police told him,’ Danny said flatly. His pale eyes were like chunks of ice. ‘The Kraken set up the whole lot: the curfew, the Gathering, the Community Committee. They all report to him. And Seth’s dad has been with him all the way. What with every second kid in the Gathering, the Community Committee and Seth’s dad’s contacts, the Kraken knows just about all there is that goes on in Cheshunt.’
‘But why? What is he trying to do?’
‘Lallie told you,’ Nissa said bleakly, coming back to the packing-case table. ‘He’s looking for us.’
A tingle of fear ran through my veins. ‘Why?’
Nissa’s eyes went over to Lallie. ‘Because we chose to answer the Call. Because of the symbols. Because somehow our coming brought her.’
‘Look, maybe we ought to go to the police,’ I said. ‘Not the ones here in Cheshunt, but in Ercildoune or Willington.’
Danny’s eyes blazed at me. ‘How do we know they’re not with him too?’
Indian broke in, ‘Even if we did find some that weren’t, what would we tell them?’
‘That… that …’ I stopped, seeing his point.
‘Seth …’ Lallie gasped suddenly.
We all turned to look at her. She was sitting bolt upright. Her breathing sounded wet and difficult.
‘Be careful, Seth,’ she said clearly, then she fell back.
‘Oh no!’ Nissa was instantly wild-eyed. She ran to the bed. ‘Lallie, is Seth in trouble?’
But Lallie didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep. On impulse I went over to the bed. Her face was dead white and there were black shadows under her eyes.
‘She looks sick,’ I said softly.
‘You don’t believe she saw Seth, do you?’ Nissa said in a hard voice. ‘You think she’s some kind of basket case.’
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ I admitted.
That seemed to defuse her fury because she sat down on the side of the bed with a sigh. ‘You know, I was already living up here when she first came. I used to leave the school then double back just on dark. Sometimes I’d go to the public library and study until it closed. One night I came back when I thought the coast was clear and she was there, just sitting on the library step.
‘I tried to get her to go home. I thought she was a bit simple.’
Nissa’s storm-blue eyes were unfocused with remembering. ‘Then she tells me she knows I live in the library roof. I nearly died. She said she had come because I answered the Call. She told me I was the first and that four more would come.’ Her eyes searched mine.
I had no idea what she wanted me to say. It wasn’t even that I disbelieved her. My face must have shown my confusion.
‘I know how this feels. You’re a thinker and so am I, and thinkers aren’t very good at believing,’ Nissa said.
‘What is Lallie scared of? The Kraken? Did he do something to her? Does she know something about him?’
Nissa gave me a pitying look, then she gazed down at Lallie. ‘Lallie wants us to do something and the Kraken is going to try to stop us. That’s all I know. I keep wanting to ask her more, but when I’m talking to her it just doesn’t seem important.’ She looked at me, miniature twin primus flames dancing in her eyes. ‘Lallie said tonight she would forge the symbols. Then she’s going to tell us what we have to do.’
‘Forge?’
Lallie opened her eyes and turned her head to look at me. ‘The last to come must forge at last.’
Nissa and I exchanged a startled look. Then Lallie sat up, her eyes wide. ‘Open the door.’
Indian obeyed, dragging open the roof hole and scrambling down the ladder. We heard him curse as the key would not turn quickly enough in the library door.
‘Hurry,’ Lallie whispered.
There was a long silence and the rain pounded down. Then Indian climbed back into the roof. Behind him, Seth Paul came through the opening carrying The Tod!
‘Some kind of dogs are out there. If it wasn’t for this little guy, I’d have been minced meat.’
The Tod wriggled and Seth set him down. He ran across and jumped up on my lap. Wordlessly, Danny handed me a towel. My mind was reeling because it sounded like Lallie had been right about Seth being in danger.
‘Guess that answers the question about where he came from,’ Seth said, his eyes summing me up. ‘You’re Nathanial, right? Nissa told me about you.’
Seth Paul was even more perfect close up than at a distance. He was built like an athlete, all toned muscle and fine lines. His eyelashes were long and dark as the black hair plastered to his head. His eyes were a soft grey. Even his teeth were white and perfectly straight.
Seth wiped his hand and extended it. I put my own into it, feeling self-conscious. It was warm and firm. It would be. Seth Paul’s hands would never sweat or feel like dead fish.
‘I told you there were dogs,’ Danny said defiantly to Indian. He looked over at Seth and I was surprised to see a flicker of dislike in his eyes. ‘Black ones, right?’
‘I couldn’t tell. They were on the oval. I would have walked right into them if the dog hadn’t warned me.’
‘Warned you?’ Indian echoed.
‘He started following me, then he stopped and growled. That’s when I saw them over the other side of the oval. About six of them slinking along the fence line. If I had kept going I would have walked right into them.’ He looked at The Tod with genuine admiration.
I rubbed him down, wondering how he had got out. He’d been locked in the yard at home when I left that morning. It occurred to me Buddha might have let him out. Getting my dog run over would be just his style. I felt a stab of fright at the thought of The Tod in Buddha’s hands.
Seth turned to Nissa. ‘Sorry I didn’t make it last night.’ There was a softer note in his voice now, but she just stared at him with subtle anger. After a minute he turned away and went over to Lallie who reached up and touched his cheek, her eyes sad. ‘Show me what you have brought.’
Seth fetched his sodden backpack, extracting a thin parcel of about half a metre. Unwrapping a grubby oilcloth, he with drew a slender, beautifully made silver telescope.
‘It’s an antique. My father’d kill me if he found I’d stolen it.’
‘The eye that sees,’ Lallie whispered.
‘What does it mean?’ Seth asked.
She looked into his eyes. ‘It means seeing things that are not seen by others.’
‘He can do that all right,’ Danny muttered cryptically.
&
nbsp; Lallie turned to face me. ‘Nathanial?’
My heart started to beat faster as I dug the metal disc out. She looked at it on the palm of my hand, frowning. Her frown deepened as she closed her fingers around it.
She shut her eyes, but suddenly they flew open as if someone had slapped her hard. Her pupils were dilated so far her eyes looked black, as if she were drugged or terrified.
‘Hey,’ Nissa murmured uneasily. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nathanial’s symbol is the circle,’ Lallie whispered. ‘The sign of completion.’ She came closer, still looking into my eyes. ‘You took this from him.’
In spite of my shock that she could know that, I was gratified by the look on Nissa’s face.
‘It is time for the forging,’ Lallie announced.
She made us put everything in a circle on the table. It looked like a selection of junk from a garage sale.
‘Join hands,’ she said, her breathing suddenly laboured. ‘Around the table.’
Nissa slid her hand into mine. It was narrow and calloused. Danny took my other hand and we grinned at one another sheepishly.
‘Does this mean we’re engaged?’ he asked me coyly. In spite of everything it was funny, or maybe I was getting hysterical.
‘This isn’t anything to laugh about!’ Nissa snapped.
‘It is,’ Lallie whispered. ‘Laughter is a powerful weapon for it carries the light. To laugh is to defy the darkness.’
I no longer felt like laughing. Lallie’s words were too solemn. Too strange. I could not hear the rain now. Or maybe it had stopped. The lamp on the table in the middle of the symbols guttered faintly, throwing its light on our faces and on to the table.
Seth took Nissa’s hand then held his spare hand out to Lallie. But she shook her head.
Seth took Indian’s hand instead. We should have felt ridiculous, but no one even looked embarrassed. It was like that moment in a seance when you are suddenly afraid something will happen.
‘Here stand the five.’ Lallie’s words were barely above a whisper, yet they seemed to reach into all corners of the shadowy attic.
An expectant silence followed and I gasped aloud when the lamp flame suddenly shot up, extinguishing our shadows on the surrounding walls. From nowhere, a violent gust of wind blew around us sending the column of fire into a frenzied dance.
The Gathering Page 8
