Alyzon Whitestarr (44 page)

“I’ve got something, but there are no more dates,” Jesse said as I reentered the kitchen. He read, “‘They say that I must not be afraid, but I
am
afraid. It is cowardice, of course. But I will not allow myself to bow to fear like Da and the others in my family of useless dreamers and idealists. What is the use of living a good life when there is so much evil? We have to show the politicians who make these laws that there are consequences to their actions. They think they can do anything, make any law, set any injustice in motion and no one
can touch them. But soon they will not dare to be complacent. They will know that there are those prepared to dare anything for their ideals, no matter what the cost.’” He stopped reading and said, “It sounds like she’s going to make some sort of radical protest against the government.”

“Soon,” Mirandah reminded us.

I shivered. “I am ready,” Serenity had written. There was a finality to the words that fitted the possibility that she was on the verge of some extreme action. I thought of the sickness inside Aaron Rayc and knew that whatever Serenity meant to do, it would darken the world.

“Let’s go through the obvious things she might do,” Jesse said. “She could shoot someone, only it wouldn’t help those refugees. It would just give the authorities another excuse to say refugees were trouble and the people supporting them were unstable lunatics.”

I thought of the warehouses in Shaletown and wondered if there were guns there. Daisy had said Aaron Rayc supported the gun lobby, so maybe he had boxes and boxes of weapons. But the idea of Serenity shooting anyone seemed like something out of a bad action movie. “She would never hurt anyone,” I said.

“Listen,” Jesse said, flicking back several pages in the diary. He read: “‘Sacrifice is necessary. It is most central to any ideal of honor.’”

“She’s definitely going to do something illegal and get arrested,” Mirandah said. “Maybe she’s going to set off a bomb.”

“Where the hell would she get a bomb?” Jesse asked, and I could smell a sharp peppery smell that I read as apprehension.

“Same place she’d get a gun!” Mirandah snapped.

“What about a fire?” Jesse said.

“She might light a fire,” I said, thinking of the fires at the Shaletown Boys Academy, the bakery, and Gilly’s house. And then I thought of the fire inside Serenity’s head in Mum’s painting.

“There’s a government office in Eastland Mall,” Mirandah said rather wildly.

“It would be pointless to burn that,” I said. “There are sprinklers and smoke alarms. In the end there’d be no more than a bit of singed carpet, which would be paid for by the insurance company.”

“Hang on,” Jesse broke in, and he bent over the diary. “Look here. I thought it was just a doodle, but it might be a map that’s been scribbled over.”

Mirandah and I crowded close, but the map, if it was a map, had been pretty well obliterated by a grid of lines. The only thing I could see was a big black cross, but I couldn’t see what was under it.

The doorbell rang, and I went to let Harrison in. “Raoul said he’d wait in the car tae save time,” he said. I led Harrison to the kitchen and introduced him to Mirandah. She gave him a speculative look that, even in that anxious moment, annoyed me. She offered coffee, and Harrison said Raoul could probably use one as well. Mirandah looked intrigued when
Harrison said Raoul was in a wheelchair, and offered to take the coffee out herself. She did not question why two strangers should be enlisted in the search for Serenity, but I saw Jesse eyeing Harrison curiously when I handed him the diary.

Harrison read the page that was open, but before he could have read more than a line, he looked up. “You saw a van pull away, you said? Was it a green van?”

I nodded. “Dark green. I don’t know why, but somehow that made my … made me certain that Serenity was in it. Then I went upstairs and she had gone.”

“There was a dark green van parked outside the refugee center in Shaletown,” Harrison said. “The protesters got intae it and drove off when it started raining. The ones Rose Cobb said were ‘political.’”

I gasped. He was right. “It must be the detention center that she’s going to target.” I looked at Jesse. “We have to go there right now. I’ll explain everything when we get back. When Da comes home, can you get him to call this number?” I had Harrison write Raoul’s cell number on the pad beside the phone.

“OK,” Jesse said. “But this better be good when I finally hear it.”

* * *

As soon as we got into the car, I told Raoul what had happened. He drove toward the highway, but instead of saying anything about Serenity, he said, “I forgot to tell you both last night. On my way back from Bellavie, something went wrong with the car. It got worse and worse and in the end I called
the roadside repair line. The guy rigged something up to get me home, but he said it would only last a day or so, then I would need to get the part replaced.”

“I bet Davey will have the part,” Harrison said.

“But we’re not going to the warehouses,” I protested. “It definitely sounds like she’s going to do something, and there would be no point in doing it there.”

“We’ll go to the detention center first,” Raoul said.

I told them then about Mum’s picture and the things she had told me. The car slowed momentarily as Raoul and Harrison stared at me in disbelief.

“I wish you could see the picture,” I said slowly. “No normal person could have painted it. And when Mum talked about having a darkness inside her, I just couldn’t believe it.”

“What seems unbelievable tae me is that this whole thing would revolve so strongly around one family,” Harrison said. “But maybe it’s because all of you have extended senses or at least the potential tae have your senses extended.” His eyes widened. “Jesus, maybe you are the way you are because your mum was infected and fighting it when each of you was born!”

“A hereditary disposition for extended senses?” Raoul said.

“Or something,” Harrison said. “I wish you had asked your mother how she was infected.”

“I did. She said she couldn’t remember but that it had something to do with an older woman. But then she wouldn’t say any more. Talking about the infection seemed to make her especially afraid.”

“It is the same with Sarry,” Raoul said. “Maybe talking about it activates the sickness. But listen, I’ve just had a thought. There’s no way your sister could set the detention center on fire. The outside wall is two stories high and made of stone, and so are most of the internal buildings, from what I’ve seen on TV.”

“And the center has its own fire truck, so even if she did manage to set something alight it wouldn’t be long before it was out,” I said. “I remember seeing it there once when we were visiting Aya.”

“Maybe this whole idea of some sort of political action is just a ruse tae get Serenity tae Shaletown,” Harrison suggested. “Maybe the real destination is the warehouses.”

Twenty minutes later Raoul turned off the highway into Shaletown. “We’ll park in front of your friend’s house. You can go in and see if she’s seen anything more of these protesters in their green van, and that’ll also give us an excuse for being there if anyone is watching. If nothing is happening there, we’ll go to the industrial park.”

But Rose was not home. From her porch I could see a little clutch of protesters with placards and lanterns sitting vigil, so I went over. They were not the protesters Harrison and I had seen; these were young women and elderly men and children, as well as young men with great shaggy manes of hair or dreadlocks. I asked a young woman in shabby overalls if she knew Rose. Her face was lit by a warm smile. “Of course I know the dear old thing,” she laughed. “I brought her some of my brownies. I had forgotten; she’s gone away to visit one of her children.”

By the time we were approaching the hill between the end of the residential area and the fields surrounding the industrial park, the sky had darkened to a grayish, indistinct evening.

“You know the French call this time of day the hour between wolf and dog,” Harrison said.

I stared at the warehouse roofs, feeling my skin prickle at the thought of how many times I had dreamed of being a wolf since my accident.

The door to the dilapidated office was open, but I couldn’t see inside because there were greasy-looking multicolored plastic streamers hanging in the space.

“Anybody there?” I called, parting the streamers and poking my head in.

There was no answer. I stepped inside. It was so dim that at first I could see nothing. I extended my vision until I could make out a desk with a phone and a cash register, all half buried under paper. The rest of the space was filled with battered and oil-stained benches covered in hundreds of bits from car engines. There were more parts set along shelves that ran behind the desk from floor to roof, and through a gap between the shelves wide enough to serve as a door, I saw there was more space. The whole place reeked of grease and dust.

“Hello?” I said, and this time I extended my hearing. There was someone in the room beyond the shelves. “Davey?”

I caught the sweetness of his scent before I saw him. He stepped out from behind the shelves, and I was struck anew
by his strange, childlike beauty. “I … my friend is here with his car. He needs something replaced, just as you said he would.”

“Simon said,” Davey replied solemnly, and he crossed to the nearest bench and picked something up. “Davey ordered the part, and now he will fix the car of the legless man.”

I drew a shaky breath, trying to think how to shape what I wanted to ask. “Davey … did you know we would come today?”

He nodded.

I took another breath. “The other day, you said this was one of ‘Their’ places. Did you mean the warehouses?” I pointed, and he looked in the warehouses’ direction for a long moment as if he could see them.

Then he said, “The warehouses are one of Their places. They are not there now.” His eyes shifted back to me, and for a split second I saw a flash of the same intelligence that I had seen in the Davey of my dreams. Rational or not, I knew he had somehow reached out to me in them.

“Do you know where They are?” I whispered.

“They are coming,” Davey said.

“Is my … is my sister with Them?” The words were too sharp, and Davey blinked as if some spell had been broken.

But then he said, “Simon says a girl is with them who is not yet one of them. Simon says Davey must fix the car now, and Alyzon Whitestarr must go and look at Their place. She must be quick and not let Them see her because then They will come to Davey.”

“Come here? But why?”

“They made all the other people who were here shut up their doors and go away. But Simon says someone must watch and see what is happening and that someone is Davey so Davey does not go. Then when the moon was full, They came to see Davey. The moon makes Them hungry when it is fat. Davey was very frightened because Simon said They would try to put the wrongness in him, but it wouldn’t find a way in. They hurt Davey and then They said he could stay, but he must tell if anyone comes and especially if someone asks about the warehouses, or They will hurt him again. Davey wanted to close up Daddy’s door and run away like the others, but Simon said be brave and be one of those monkeys.”

“Monkeys?” I echoed.

Davey lifted one blackened hand to his mouth and covered it, and a slyness flickered over his soft features, but it was the innocent slyness of a child. Then he shifted his hand to one eye and then to one ear, and I understood. The three wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. He tapped his nose and smiled, and there was such sweet mischief in it that, despite everything, I found myself smiling, too.

I went back outside to where Raoul and Harrison waited in the car. “Davey was expecting us. He has the part you’re going to need. He says no one is at the warehouses now, but that They are coming and that They have a girl with them. I need to go and have a closer look.”

“We can take the cell, and if it looks like Serenity is in
danger, we’ll message you, Raoul,” Harrison said, smiling at Davey as he approached with his tools.

But Davey did not smile back at him. “Simon says Alyzon Whitestarr must go alone.”

Harrison began to argue, but although my mouth felt dry with dread, I managed to say calmly, “It’s OK. I’ll go alone.” Raoul put the spare phone on silent and punched some buttons, then handed it to me, saying I had only to push the send button if I needed help.

Davey suddenly lifted his head like a dog hearing something humans could not. I extended my own hearing and made out, very faintly, the distant hum of an engine.

“They are coming,” Davey announced.

I shucked off my backpack and handed it to Harrison. “Dinnae do anything stupid,” he said brusquely, but there was anxiety in his eyes and for a moment the smell of lavender was overpowering.

I turned to Davey, who reached out and grabbed one of my hands in his silky black grasp. A wave of shining childlike confidence surged into me, and I saw clearly the image of the wolf that I became in my dreams; only in Davey’s version, beams of white light shone from my eyes!