you got older, I think I’d just got into the habit of keeping secrets.’
She takes my hands again. This time I don’t pull away.
‘Right or wrong, everything I did, I did for you. You must know that.’
A tear escapes down her face, drips off her chin onto my wrist.
‘I didn’t mean those things I said,’ I tell her.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘Kyle, you’re frightened and you’re confused. With everything that’s happened to you, I can’t blame you for being angry. And we all say things we regret when we’re angry. It’s only . . . human.’
‘You’re sure I’m not a monster?’
‘Kyle, you’re no monster,’ she says, looking me in the eye. ‘Believe me.’
I think about that caged creature I saw at the Peace Fair.
‘But what am I then?’
She gives her head a little shake. ‘Just a boy who heals quickly. And maybe you’re stronger and faster than other boys. Different – that’s all. No twisted blood. Not evil. On any other world, it wouldn’t be a curse, it’d be a blessing.’
I’m shocked. ‘Isn’t that heresy?’
‘Heresy? Hah, that’s what they’d like you to think.’
She leads me back to the table and puts her hands to her cheeks, which drags her skin down so taut she looks a hundred years old. ‘You must understand, this whole rotten world is built on lies. Our so-called Saviour is the biggest liar of all. Nothing is what it seems, not even me. But the biggest lie of all is that kids like you will grow up to be monsters. Whatever happens, never believe that.’ She sighs. ‘Just listen to me, droning on all self-righteous about lies. I may not have lied to you, Kyle, but I’ve hidden the truth and that’s just as wicked. I’ve been a fool.’
I reach over and cover her cold fingers with my warm ones.
‘So tell me the truth.’
Rona shifts uneasily, looks past me, at something that isn’t in the room.
‘The truth? The truth is that you’re in great danger now, Kyle. And not only because of what you are, but because of who you are.’
‘Huh?’ I say, not sure I heard this right.
But Rona doesn’t explain. Instead she throws her head back and stares up at the ceiling. I look too. For one mad second, I half expect to see her secrets carved into the rough-hewn rafters, but all I see are bugwebs and shadows.
‘Okay,’ I say, fighting to keep frustration out of my voice, ‘when I asked if you knew about me being different, you said you weren’t sure. You said something else like there was always a chance it was me. What did you mean by that?’
I squeeze her hand, until she looks at me.
‘Even as a healer I couldn’t tell,’ she says, her voice a whisper. ‘After you shrugged off the swamp pox, I thought it likely. But I wasn’t sure until a few days ago. You see, Kyle –’ She hesitates, a vein squirming at her temple. ‘I suppose deep down I’d always hoped that it wasn’t you, that it was your brother.’
My next heartbeat is a long time coming. ‘My brother?’
More tears wriggle down her face. ‘Your identical twin. Colm.’
I stand up so fast, my vision goes all blurry.
‘What? I have a brother ?’
Rona reaches for me, but I recoil.
‘Kyle,’ she pleads.
The door bangs open. Sky sticks her head inside, looking real tense.
‘We’ve got company!’
Somehow, Rona beats me to the door. I’m trying to peer past her when her whole body stiffens. I hear her sudden intake of breath. When she turns round, I see she’s bitten her lip so hard it’s bleeding. I squeeze past and look outside. In the distance, I see a column of flaming torches, slowly winding its way towards us.
No three ways about it – it’s a lynch mob.
‘Oh, Jude,’ I groan. ‘What the hell have you done?’
‘Time to go,’ hisses Sky.
Rona runs, grabs my parka and my daypack and hurls them at me.
‘Don’t stand there!’ she yells. ‘Get out by the back window.’
She rips open a cupboard and grabs a plastic container. Stunned, I watch as she tears the cap off and starts sloshing liquid over walls and floor.
I know that stink – it’s surgical spirit.
‘I’m not leaving you,’ I shout.
Rona throws the empty container down. ‘I’ll catch up with you at the old landing ground. Now please, Kyle, do as I say for once. And hurry!’
What old landing ground?
The girl starts hauling me away, but I shrug her off.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she says.
Next thing I know, Rona is shaking me.
‘Kyle, there’s a gun in your pack. Don’t be scared to use it if you have to. We do still have friends out there, more than you know. Sky will take us to them; we’ll be safe there. I love you. Now, get moving! I’ll follow as soon as I can.’
She crushes her lips to my cheek, then shoves me away.
I want to say, ‘I love you too.’
But a sudden gust of wind rattles the shutters, bringing with it the sound of men’s voices, baying for twist blood. And they’re shouting my name.
It’s like I feel rope around my neck already.
I throw myself out of the window after the girl. I run and run and don’t look back until a whoosh sound overtakes me. I stop then, bent over and panting after the steep climb. Way below me a red and orange fireball leaps high into the night sky. The torches of the lynch mob scatter. I hear angry cries. I think maybe I see a figure flit from the back of the blazing shack and dodge through leaping shadows. Only I can’t see anything but flames now as Sky appears beside me, gasping.
‘Rona knows what she’s doing,’ I tell her. Tell myself.
‘Good,’ she says, sounding disgusted. ‘But you don’t. Where do you think you’re going? The landing ground’s up this way.’
She stomps away off to my left and the darkness swallows her.
When the sun finally drags itself up in the west, bathing the world in watery dayshine, I reckon I’ve done enough running. I’ve never come this way on any of my hunting trips, so have only the vaguest idea where we are – someplace high in the mountains north of Freshwater. Half an hour ago, in pitch-darkness, the trail crossed over a ridge. We’ve been descending ever since.
Sky’s ahead of me, limping along and not looking back.
It’s been a hell of a night getting up here, cold and hard and scary. How we weren’t stalked and gobbled by gibbercats or nightrunners, I’ll never know.
With a curse, I ease the pack from my aching shoulders. My stomach rumbles, so I find a rock to sit on, take a drink from my canteen and open the