Unravelled (38 page)

“Wiki is good with numbers. He just gets them – they speak to him, they tell him things they don’t tell me. No one thinks that’s odd because it’s something we’re used to, but there’s no difference between numbers speaking to Wiki and minds speaking to me. It’s like computers. Most people have no idea how those things work. They’re a kind of magic, too, and the people that work with them are sorcerers.

“People think supernatural abilities are either dark and evil, or made-up nonsense. Once upon a time, they thought the same of electricity, and technology, and every new thing that has ever come into society. People are scared and dismissive of what they don’t understand. But the gifted are the same as anyone else with a unique talent. It comes naturally. We don’t seek it out. And some of us will use it to hurt others, the same way an ungifted bad guy would use money, power and intellect. You’re struggling to accept it because you’ve told yourself it’s impossible. But the thing is, Dad, a scientist is the last person who should use the word ‘impossible’. Everything your work is based on was once impossible! Don’t think of this as something strange. Just look at it this way – I have a special talent, and a dangerous, powerful man wants to take advantage of it.”

Dad looks at me. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple! Your mind is complicating it.”

He raises his gaze to my grandfather’s face. “So I am expected to believe that my daughter is a telepath, her ex-boyfriend is some kind of magical parasite, a sorcerer who can change shape and brainwash an entire army has set his sights on them, and you, my father-in-law, are some kind of magical mentor helping Connie improve her powers, like Yoda and his Jedi knights?”

“Precisely,” says Ntatemogolo, nodding.

Dad gets to his feet. “You’re asking too much.”

“Dad, you saw for yourself – ”

“I don’t know what I saw!” he barks. “I saw something that makes no sense, that couldn’t have been real! Connie, you can’t really believe all this. Reading minds, shape shifting, armies…” He sighs and shakes his head and turns towards the corridor. “It’s madness!”

“Dad!”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t deal with this right now,” he cries. “I’m tired and jet-lagged and…I can’t.” He storms off, slamming his bedroom door behind him.

“It will take time,” says Ntatemogolo gently. “It is a lot to process, especially for him.”

The phone rings before I can respond. It’s Lebz, sounding both panicked and relieved.

“Thank goodness you’re home! Have you seen the latest
GC Chronicle
?”

A chill comes over me. Emily. It has to be something about Emily. “No. Why?”

“I’m coming over.” She hangs up, and I turn to face my grandfather.

“Bad news?” he asks.

“Sounds like it.” I have a feeling I know what I’m going to see in the paper when Lebz turns up. I brace myself and walk out to the gate to wait for her.

She comes running round the corner and down the street, clutching the newspaper. I open the gate to let her in and she throws her arms around me.

“Welcome home,” she whispers, then releases me and thrusts the paper at me. “Sorry, but you’re not going to have much time to relax.”

I gulp and take the paper. Emily’s picture is on the front page, this time under a far more jarring headline than before. The words hit me like a sledgehammer, then my gaze drops and I skim the story. It contains the details of Emily’s “suicide”. Her body was found hanging from a tree just outside of Francistown. There was a note, in her writing, saying she was tormented by the things that happened while she was under the power of the Puppetmaster’s necklace and couldn’t go on. I raise my gaze to Lebz’s face.

“I don’t think it’s true,” she says. “Emily’s alive, and the Puppetmaster is just trying to stop people from looking for her. Right?”

I smile, though my mood has turned grim. Lebz is turning into a regular Sherlock. “Right. Well, I hope so. I knew he would do something like this eventually.”

“But what are
you
going to do?”

I shrug. “I’ll ask Ntatemogolo.”

Her eyes widen. “He’s back? The real one?”

“Yes, Malebogo, I am back,” Ntatemogolo says wryly from the front door. “Let me see that paper.”

Lebz bites her lip, embarrassed, and offers a polite greeting as I hand the newspaper to my grandfather.

“Come on in,” I tell her. “Let’s call Wiki – I have a lot to tell you guys.”

***

That evening, after Lebz is gone, I emerge from the bathroom and stop near Dad’s door. He hasn’t left the room since our little revelation, not even to eat. He’s snoring softly now, and I hope he’s dreaming of test tubes and lab results rather than sorcerers.

It’s too early for bed, so I head to the living room. I can hardly believe so much has happened in one day – in a matter of hours. Coming home to find Ntatemogolo and the Puppetmaster engaged in battle, the Puppetmaster blackmailing me into agreeing to three meetings, Dad learning the truth and the article about Emily’s “death”.

Ntatemogolo is sitting in the living room when I walk in, poring over his notes. He looks up as I enter.

“Why would he keep my tooth?” The question has been bothering me since the moment I realised the tooth was mine. “I understand why he might have wanted it in the first place – maybe to get a reading from it, or use it in some twisted ritual. But it’s been so long. Why does he still have it, now that he can just kidnap me and take a new one?”

Ntatemogolo shakes his head. On this subject, he’s as clueless as I am. “You should rest,” he says, keeping his voice low so he doesn’t wake Dad.

“I’m not tired.” The
GC Chronicle
is still lying on the coffee table, Emily’s face mocking me from the front page. “It’s not fair that he can do this and get away with it,” I murmur, picking up the paper. I sit cross-legged on the carpet with the paper in my lap. “All the people who are grieving now, preparing a funeral for a fake corpse – it’s not right.”

“And the truth would be better?” Ntatemogolo puts his notes on the cushion beside him. “You think her family would rather know that she left them to go and serve a sorcerer? That would only torment them. They would convince themselves that she was under a spell, that she would come back. I think perhaps no hope is better than false hope.”

“But maybe there
is
hope.” I look up to meet his gaze. “Emily’s young. She thinks she knows what she’s doing, but she doesn’t. She might realise that some day. She might change her mind and want to go home.”

He nods. “But by then she would have committed more crimes than she could remember. Even if she escaped justice because of her youth, or by blaming the Puppetmaster, she will be haunted for the rest of her life. Either way, my girl, the Emily in that photograph is lost forever.”

I put the paper back on the table. I don’t know what turned Emily. Even if I got the chance to talk to her, I might still never understand how she could choose the Puppetmaster over everyone else. The girl in the photo might be lost, but I can’t accept that there’s no chance for Emily at all. If we can get to her, we can save her. No one is beyond redemption. Not even the Puppetmaster himself.

I turn my attention to the magic box, now lying on the coffee table beside the goatskin bag that contains Ntatemogolo’s tools. “Was my theory correct about those objects? He uses them to shape shift?”

Ntatemogolo smiles and nods. “Shape shifting is not a simple thing. It seems the Puppetmaster locks on one particular aspect of the person he wants to impersonate – a facial feature, perhaps – and then builds on that. After that he locks the energy sequence that allows him to change into that person into an object, an accessory, something small that he can carry around. Then the next time he needs to use that face, instead of using a lot of psychic energy re-conjuring it, he simply puts on the accessory and unlocks the sequence.”

“So the objects are like keys,” I muse. “And I didn’t do much damage by taking them, because he can just make more.”

Ntatemogolo nods again, and arches his eyebrows. “But this tells us something very interesting about our sorcerer friend.”

I think for a moment, and then the clues click into place in my mind. “He’s not a natural shifter! If he were, after all these years he would have become so good he wouldn’t need keys.”

Ntatemogolo smiles. “That’s my girl.”

I return his smile, pleased with myself. “Is it possible he’s not a natural telepath, either?” The expression on Ntatemogolo’s face tells me I’m grasping at straws. Oh, well. A girl can dream. I point at his notes. “What are you reading?”

“The notes I made in D’Kar about the drifter girl. I will be going back as soon as I can. There are still a lot of questions I must ask, and she was reluctant to talk before. She has no cell yet. You know now what that means.”

I nod. “She’s unhappy, unbalanced and afraid. But she’ll come around. She must know you’re the only person who can help her. The only person who
wants
to help her.”

He looks at me for a long moment. “Would you like to come with me?”

“To D’Kar?” I’m stunned. He has never asked me to come along on one of his trips.

“Yes. I could use your help.”

“But…wouldn’t I be in the way?”

He shakes his head. “You have grown tremendously, my girl. What you did with the spell box – I have never even heard of someone attempting that before. To use telepathy that way – and succeed – is remarkable.”

“It was Lebz’s idea,” I confess, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

“But
you
did it. In a matter of months you developed a barrier that took me years to build and learned to communicate with another telepath. Your sensitivity has developed far beyond my expectations.” A wistful note creeps into his voice. “I would never have been able to teach you what he has.”

“That’s not true!” I protest in dismay. “He didn’t teach me – he backed me into corners and forced me to learn on my feet.”

“He must have felt that the end justified the means, and perhaps he was right.” Ntatemogolo smiles. “Don’t worry; I have no intention of drowning in self-pity. I am simply appreciating the irony of the situation. I was gone, and the enemy stepped into my shoes and wiped the floor with me.”

“For his own ends,” I mutter. “Whatever they may be.”

When I named John Kubega the Puppetmaster, I had no idea that the strings he’d been pulling all along were mine. I hate the thought of him playing God with my life and the lives of the people around me. I hate not being able to tell which decisions were mine and which were simply moves he mapped out for me in advance.

“Even in a story, the characters can take the writer by surprise,” says Ntatemogolo gently. “Remember, the most important power you have is choice. The Puppetmaster can plot and scheme and manipulate, but only you can decide how to respond.”

I nod, trying to take comfort in his words. It’s not easy. The Puppetmaster may be a megalomaniac, but he’s not a fool. If he truly believes he can find a way to control me, to force me to work towards his goals, he must have a good reason. How do I know that every move I’ve made in my life hasn’t been part of his plan?

“Connie.”

I look up at my grandfather.

“Stop worrying. The time for uncovering the Puppetmaster’s secrets will come, and you will be ready. You have already proved yourself equal to the task. If you must save the world like one of your cinema superheroes, you will.”

An image of me in a cape comes to mind, and I smile. It means a lot that my grandfather has faith in me.

“But for now we have another mission to fulfil,” he goes on. “We must help a drifter find her place among her own, and help all drifters discover the truth about their origins.” He touches my shoulder gently. “Saving the world begins with saving one.”

I nod. There’s nothing I can do about Emily or her evil master right now. Helping the girl drifter means helping Rakwena, and that’s the most worthwhile mission I can think of. I get to my feet, bid my grandfather goodnight and go to my room.

When I open the door to my bedroom, the room is filled with blue light. I stop in the doorway and stare at the crystal. It’s never shone this brightly before; Rakwena must be anxious. I close the door behind me and walk to the crystal, cradling it in my hands and sending calm thoughts to him across the ether.

Why is he so wound up? Wait, what day is it? I turn to glance at the small calendar on my desk. It’s been three months since he left. Rakwena’s orientation must be over, and now he is about to be formally inducted into the clan. I smile. That explains the anxiety. I perch on the edge of my desk, close my eyes and focus all my attention on reaching him.

You’re going to be fine. Relax. Deep breaths. You’re not going to make a good impression if you start singeing the furniture. You’re OK. Everyone’s on your side. Just take it easy, enjoy the moment and stay far away from your father!

I sense something vague bounce back along the wire of my gift, a tiny frisson of energy. The crystal crackles, and a wonderful, familiar tingle leaps into my fingers. I laugh, amazed and thrilled. I had no idea we could do that!

I let the tingle seep into me. When I open my eyes, the crystal’s glow has dimmed slightly. I can almost see Rakwena smiling.

I put the crystal back in its designated spot on my desk and turn to my suitcase, which is still lying open on the floor, half unpacked. I fish out the bell, sit on my bed and ring it once, letting its solemn sound clear out the dust from the Puppetmaster’s visit.

No matter what the Puppetmaster has planned for us, I know d Rakwena and I will be OK. We’re superheroes, capes aside. Superheroes may get banged up, make stupid choices and walk right into the enemy’s trap, but they always save the day. They always break the spell.

I put the bell on my desk, climb into bed and open the book Dad got me for my birthday. I know real life isn’t like a novel. People get hurt. Things get broken beyond repair. But I’m an optimist. I choose to believe in happy endings. Puppetmaster or not, I’m going to get mine.

A glimmer of blue light catches my eye. I look up. The crystal’s glowing again, but this time it’s the steady glow of certainty.