20 Years Later (21 page)

Zane fished out a piece of paper from his pocket and read out loud, “I, Zane Taylor, do most solemnly swear to always do everything I possibly can to heal the sick, to treat the wounded, and to try to save the life of anyone who is injured or dying.”

Both Luthor and Jay bristled at this, but Zane didn't notice.

“I swear,” he continued, “that I will remember that sympathy and kindness are just as important as bandages and ointment, and that it is the whole person that should be thought of, not just where they are hurt. If a patient tells me something in confidence, then I will not tell others. If I have the chance to save someone's life, then I will with thanks, but if I must let them die to end their suffering, I promise that I will do this in a humble and considerate way, and that I will not try to be more important than I really am. May I always heal and find joy in that task.”

He finished and looked around the small circle of people. Titus and Erin beamed at him, whilst Miri dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, smiling proudly. Callum nodded at him with respect and Jay winked at him. Luthor stepped towards him.

“If an oath is to be one that binds you, then you should mark it with blood,” he stated, drawing his knife, which made Miri take in a sharp breath. Jay moved forward but Callum put a hand on his shoulder, holding him back calmly.

Zane swallowed hard and looked at the steel tip in front of his nose. Luthor was clearly waiting for him to do something, but he had no idea what. After a brief pause, Luthor took his hand and pricked the end of his finger swiftly before Zane could pull away. He waited until a large drop of blood swelled onto the tip before giving it one firm shake to make the drop fall onto the soil.

Satisfied, he let Zane's hand go, saying in a loud clear voice, “With his blood, let the oath be kept.”

All three children shivered.

Zane sucked the tiny wound as Luthor looked at him with something like respect. “One step closer to being a man,” he said, looking into his eyes before stepping back.

“Now you're a proper doctor,” Titus said with satisfaction.

When the gathering drifted apart, Titus quietly followed Jay to the edge of the square and held a brief hushed conversation with him about the link between the Giant and the Unders that ended in Jay leaving with renewed purpose.

Now that Zane had taken his oath and his nerves were subsiding, he considered going to tell his mother about the Giant, but then Luthor returned with an armful of practice weapons and he was soon swept along into the morning training.

It wasn't until the end of the day that they were given some time to themselves and the three gathered at the far end of the square near the hospital.

“Mum's sorting out a sprained ankle, one of the Blooms-bury Boys,” Zane reported quietly. “We should have about fifteen minutes at least.”

“Dad was called back to the Red Lady,” Erin added, “He'll be gone a while.”

“Good,” Titus nodded. “Let's go then whilst we have some light.”

They hurried into the hospital lobby, furtively checking that they were unseen. Once again Erin was in the lead with a dagger drawn, Titus close behind her looking just as alert, and Zane following a few paces behind, his heart thrumming so hard that he could feel his pulse in his throat.

They stepped into the stairwell and since it was clear with no new footprints, they steadily climbed to the third floor as quietly as they could. Erin opened the door into the corridor after looking through the round window first. The dust lay still on the other side, save the small swirls stirred by the eddies of air from the door's movement.

“Looks clear,” she whispered and Titus nodded confidently.

“We're the only ones here,” he whispered back.

“Why are we whispering then?” Zane asked tremulously.

“Best to be on the safe side,” Erin replied and stepped through into the corridor.

The three crept to the office door, seeing their old footprints and those of the Giant still crisp in the thick grey carpet of dust. They entered the office, Zane shutting the door carefully behind them and staying very close to it.

Titus scanned the room. “I don't think he's been back since the last time we came here.”

Zane went to the wall of photos and Titus looked at them briefly too before drifting off to look through the filing cabinets. Erin was twitchy; she went over the window again, rubbing her temples.

Zane frowned at the images of his father and his namesake. His father looked nice enough, happy and friendly, so why had his mother lied? Had he turned into someone horrible? Then another idea struck him and he regretted this one even
more.

“Maybe he joined the Gardners,” he said quietly. “Maybe that's why Mum lied.”

“No silly,” Erin said softly. “I would've seen him, and I didn't.”

Zane gave a huge sigh of relief. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

Erin gripped the edge of one of the desks, shaking. “Um, are you going to be long, Titus?”

He gave a noncommittal grunt, concentrating hard on a file he'd found. Zane went over to Erin. “What's wrong?”

“Got a bit of a headache. Something about this place … had one the last time we came. I don't like it here much you know.”

Zane nodded. “I don't either. Maybe it's the old air making your head hurt.”

She shrugged. “It's not a big deal.”

They both watched Titus rifling through the papers in the cabinet for a few moments before returning to the wall of photos, drawn to the glimpses of life before It happened.

“The women looked weird back then,” Erin mumbled. “Their lips are all different colours. Look at this one.” She pointed to a photo of Zane's smartly dressed father with his arm around a woman in an evening gown. “Her lips are really bright pink.”

Zane peered at it. “That doesn't look … natural,” he agreed. “Maybe she was ill. But her cheeks are really rosy … I don't understand.”

“Her eyelids are a funny colour too,” Erin added, fascinated by the puzzle. “Maybe some women used to be funny colours.”

Zane shrugged, captivated by the images of his father and his best friend. He tried to imagine a world filled with women who wore sparkling dresses and who seemed only too happy to kiss and hold hands with men. A world that was clean and shiny, with bright colours and strangely lit rooms. He wondered
what the dirty water that they were drinking in many of the pictures tasted like and whether it made them sick. He knew his mother would never let him drink anything that was that colour. But more than anything, he wondered what it was like to be his dad's best friend, to be in those places with him laughing and talking and putting arms around women with him. He felt a heavy ache fill his chest.

“I wish I knew him,” he whispered, too quietly for the others to hear.

“You nearly done, Titus?” Erin asked impatiently.

“Just one more minute,” he said, giving up on the filing cabinet and starting to rifle through the drawers of the desk.

She returned to scanning the pictures with Zane. “There aren't any of the Giant in these pictures,” she commented.

“That's a good thing, right?” Zane asked and she shrugged.

“Guess so.”

Titus slipped a piece of glossy paper into his pocket surreptitiously as Zane and Erin focused on the wall. He sighed with frustration. “I can't find anything about the Unders or Giants anywhere here.”

“We should go,” Erin said and Titus nodded grimly.

He turned to leave, but as he did so a book mostly buried under the scattered papers on the floor around the filing cabinet caught his eye. He pulled out a leather-bound diary and flicked through the pages, filled with meticulous notes on the weather, compared planting techniques, and relative yields. He was about to dismiss it as nothing more than a scientist's experimentation with gardening when he noticed how the entries stopped abruptly halfway through the book. “Zane,” he said after reading the last lines. “Look at this.”

Zane went over to see the page that Titus held open to him. He scanned a few lines about planting carrots in an old bath to avoid pests, but then the notes broke off and a thick line carved the page in two, as if scored in by a knife. Scrawled in the same handwriting, yet with less care, was the only personal
note in the book:

Miri's pregnant. Shit shit shit. Should've been more careful. What the hell do I do now?

Zane stared at it, Titus reading his face as easily as he had read the page. Zane then noticed the date at the top of the page: 21st March, 2017.

“But …” was all Zane managed to say as Titus nodded.

“I was right,” he said softly. “That date is five years after It happened. He didn't die then.”

Erin's eyes widened. “So your mum was lying! Whoa, I never thought Miri would be like that.” Zane shot her an angry glare and she patted the air with her hands. “Sorry, Zane, that came out wrong.”

“You
must
talk to her,” Titus urged. “You have to tell her about the Giant and find out why she lied.”

“But it'll upset her!”

“But it might help us to find Lyssa!” Titus blurted out. “The Giant came to this room,
only
this room on this whole floor–there has to be a reason why! Maybe he knows your dad. Maybe Miri knows where he is and then we could find the Giant and then we could find Lyssa!”

Zane bit his lip, struck by the open desperation on his friend's normally composed face. “Okay,” he sighed, “I'll talk to her … I'll go and ask her now.”

Zane closed the front door quietly and went into the kitchen, finding his mother tending to the houseplants on the windowsill.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, not yet turning to face him. “I thought I'd teach you how to make that mash you like.”

He didn't reply, unable to find the right words to start off the conversation he'd delayed so long. The long pause made her stop and look over to him.

“Zane,” she said softly after a few moments, and he broke out of his thoughts. “Why don't you tell me about it?”

Zane looked down at the rug, his stomach twisted into one large knot. “Because I'm worried you'll get all upset,” he replied quietly.

She frowned. “Well, you have to tell me now, otherwise I'll just worry.”

He sighed and went into the living room, Miri following straight away. He flopped down onto the sofa so heavily that she went to sit next to him and gathered him into her arms. She eased his head onto her shoulder and stroked his long hair, just like when he was small and had fallen over.

He pulled away so he could see her face. “Mum,” he began tentatively. “I didn't tell you everything about when I went to the hospital where I got Dad's picture from.” It was clearly the last thing she expected him to say. “There was someone in there … a Giant.”

Miri blinked. “What? Start at the beginning.”

Zane told her about the first encounter, taking care not
to mention Dev. He knew if he mentioned Dev, his mum would blame him for tempting him into the hospital. Whilst it was true, he didn't want his friend to get into trouble for it. Dev's life was hard enough. Instead, he glossed over his involvement and went on to tell her about Titus' dream about Lyssa and their realisation that the Giant must come from the Unders. By the time he'd finished, Miri's cheeks had drained to an awful grey green and his stomach twisted when he realised that it wasn't all he had to tell her.

She swallowed again. “We need to tell Jay … and Luthor … if the Unders are sending people here they need to know.”

He couldn't bring himself to tell her that Jay had known for some time, and that the Red Lady had also found out about this before her. “Er, Titus is taking care of all that at the moment Mum … there's more that I need to talk to you about.” He took a deep breath. “I need to know about Dad.”

He saw her look away, watched her eyes become distant for a moment, and then when she looked back at him it was as if she was somehow closed off from him. “I don't think it's very worthwhile to think too much about the past,” she said quietly and began to get up to go and busy herself.

Zane caught hold of her hand to stop her. “Mum, please. I need to know because the Giant was in his office.”

She sat back down but her eyes wouldn't meet his.

Zane sighed and decided that he had to pursue this or she would never tell him. “I know he didn't die when It happened.”

Her eyes flicked to him, infused with guilt. She swallowed again but didn't say anything.

He shifted around so that he was facing her properly. “Why did you lie?”

Her hands began to shake and she looked up at the ceiling, swallowing again as if something had caught in her throat. “I just thought it was the best thing to do. I didn't want you to think about it all.”

“Well, I am thinking about it, a lot!” Zane exclaimed. “He's my dad, and …” He took a deep breath. “I want to know what happened to him.”

He watched the muscle in her jaw work as she struggled to deal with the conversation. “I'm just not sure if it's something that –”

“Mum,” he said, cutting her off, and she blinked at him in surprise. “Tell me. Please.”

She looked back at the rug, but he knew she didn't really see it. She seemed to be looking at another time. “I met your father when I came here a couple of years after … after It happened.” She paused, trying to hold back her emotions that threatened to drown out her words. “Mum and Dad, your grandparents, used to work at the homeopathic hospital across the square and we used to have picnics in the garden here when I visited. But when I came back of course it was very different. I was very scared and alone and I didn't really know what I was doing here. You see, I'd had this silly dream that they were still alive and it was so vivid that I walked here, just in case it was true. There wasn't any other way to find out.”