The Burning (31 page)

It felt more like a death.

“Allahu akbar… Allahu akbar… Haya ala as-sala… Haya ala as-sala…”

God is the greatest… Come to prayer. The recorded, robotic voice droned again, calling to the faithful from a loudspeaker on top of a nearby mosque. Rachel lay back in bed, the arches and decorative patterns in the room just becoming visible in the half-light. She felt the lurch in her guts, at the realization that, for the fourth morning in a row, Adam was still not there. Lulled by her mother’s steady breathing from the bed on the other side of the room, Rachel tried to gather her thoughts and dampen the panic.

To face another day in Marrakesh.

From Seville they had driven in the stolen van to a small port on the Spanish Coast, but when they had arrived at the harbour, Rachel’s idea of the boat they were supposed to be picking up had quickly dissolved.

In her mind’s eye, she had seen a small fishing vessel, white or blue, bobbing at a berth, with a clean, crisp sail and a jolly name like
Salty Sue
or
Seaspray
. A boat like the
well-polished craft of the fair-weather sailors she had seen back in Cape Cod.

By contrast, the
San Miguel
was a workhorse. Squat and stubby, its rusting hulk lurked, black and heavy, in the greasy water of the fishing port. As it approached, the boat had slapped its sturdy side against the quay, like a truculent sea monster straining to be free of its ropes. As they had climbed aboard, helped by Inez and Carmen’s Uncle Pepe, Rachel had been winded by the stench of old fish and diesel oil.

Eight of them had bundled into the cabin behind the wheelhouse, while Pepe had started up the engine; the milky bulkhead lights flickering on their pale faces as the generator powered up. Pepe had shouted instructions in Spanish to Jean-Luc and Jean-Bernard, who had stayed on deck, to let the ropes go from the quayside bollards. The boat had juddered out of the harbour into a black night and beyond into a bumpy sea, headed for the coast of North Africa.

The combined smells of fish, oil and Pepe’s strong black cigarettes, coupled with the lumpy motion of the boat, had been too much for Rachel and her mother. They had staggered from the cabin and, helped on deck by the French boys, had thrown up over the side: retching their discomfort, their grief and the remains of their last meal into the Atlantic.

They had stayed out in the air, huddled together for comfort and staring up at the bright stars that were the only signs lighting their way.

As dawn had broken the following morning, they had all
gone out on deck. A sliver of coastline had just been visible a few kilometres to the left of them and Laura Sullivan had shouted above the roar of the engine. “Where are we?”

Pepe had pointed at the coastline. “Casablanca.”

Rachel had recognized the name from an old film. It had sounded incredibly foreign and exotic.

“We’re docking at a smaller town further up the coast,” Carmen had said. “Uncle Pepe has friends there.
We
have friends there.”

They had arrived at a harbour that looked as if it had come from a different era: from hundreds of years before. Primitive, wooden boats had been bobbing about, and fishermen in ragged clothes had been stacking crates of sardines and laying out still-twitching eels on the dockside slabs.

They had stepped across tangled nets and wooden crates, walked past hulks of old ships and out through a gate to an area where ancient cars and taxis were haphazardly parked. Pepe had hugged and kissed his nieces. Then he had wiped the tears from his eyes, before squeezing them all into two battered old Mercedes, handing bundles of notes to the very grateful drivers and sending them on their way to Marrakesh.

Three hours later, the taxis had arrived at the red walls of the old town, which the driver had called the medina, before announcing that they could go no further. Men, dressed in skullcaps and long, hooded garments, had filled narrow streets. Mopeds had weaved dangerously around carts pulled by sad-looking donkeys.

Rachel had never seen anything like it…

Before visiting England and Triskellion, Rachel had only really seen New York City and a couple of places upstate. Aside from the cars and bikes everywhere, this place had seemed like something out of the Middle Ages: beggars dressed in rags; street sellers pushing carts full of mint and oranges; craftsmen hammering out ornate pieces of metal-work on the pavement; the smells of manure and perfume, woodsmoke and drains…

From nowhere, an old man pulling a wooden barrow had appeared. After a gabbled exchange with the taxi drivers, he had grabbed the few backpacks and bags that the group still possessed and had piled them into his cart. Before anyone could question him, he had barked a command for them to follow and had pushed the barrow through the gate into the old town.

“Wait!” Rachel had shouted. “Where are we going?” She’d seen that Laura, her mother and the others were all as bewildered as she had been by the sudden chaos that surrounded them. The old man had stopped as Rachel caught up with him.

“Don’t worry,” Gabriel had said. He’d stepped through the gate and rested a hand gently on her shoulder. “He knows this place like the back of his hand.”

The man had grinned at Rachel and placed his left hand on his chest, bowing his head to her. That had been when Rachel had noticed the tattoo. It was faded but still distinct, etched
on to the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger: a smudgy blue symbol against the leathery brown flesh.

A Triskellion.

They had reached the Riad Magi after a seemingly endless trek that had taken them down alleys and across small squares, past shops festooned with conical red pots, copper basins and carpets of every colour and size. They’d followed the cart past men mending piles of worn-out shoes, past holes in the wall stacked with flat loaves of bread and past tiled shopfronts displaying a single, skinned rabbit or a hook draped with the innards of a recently butchered animal.

With no street names and precious few signs, the whole group – with the exception of Gabriel, who had seemed to know every sudden turn and each hidden alleyway – had collectively lost its sense of direction. Morag and Duncan had looked terrified. They’d stuck close to Kate and Laura, as bicycles and carts had ploughed past them with no apparent concern for their safety, or acknowledgement of their existence.

Finally, they’d turned down a narrow passage, ducked under a low arch and stopped outside a weathered brown door; its polished brass plate was engraved in Arabic. The old man had stepped away from his barrow and knocked. Rachel had taken a deep breath and shuddered as a three-legged black cat had brushed its matted and emaciated body against her leg. Then the bolts on the other side of the door had been thrown back.

The tranquil interior of the riad had been a complete contrast to the filthy, bustling alleyways outside. Guided through a dark entrance hall by a boy dressed in white, the group had shuffled into an open courtyard. A small pool bubbled in the middle and the courtyard walls had been bleached white by the sunlight pouring in through the open roof. Stairs twisted up and away to rooms on each side, their entrances concealed by thin curtains that had danced on the gentle breeze.

“You are welcome! Most welcome.”

A man had poked his head over the balcony and had called down from the first floor. He’d grinned widely then disappeared, clattering down some stone stairs before reappearing next to the pool.

“Welcome, welcome. I am Mahmoud.” The man, though clearly Moroccan, had spoken with an almost flawless English accent, like the people Rachel had seen reading the news back in Triskellion. “Have you had a good journey?”

Before anyone had been able to answer, he’d moved quickly from one member of the group to another, shaking hands, bowing, blinking through heavy-framed glasses and beaming through his close-clipped grey beard. He wore a fez and a long, hooded garment – white with orange stripes – like most of the men they had seen.

Rachel had stared down at his yellow slippers. He reminded her of a character from a
Star Wars
movie.

“You must be hungry,” he had said. He’d instructed the
boy in white to take their bags upstairs, then led them into a beautiful room where, on a table strewn with rose petals, a fantastic breakfast had been laid out.

Since their arrival, Mahmoud had catered to their every whim. They had eaten well and slept in the afternoon, or sat in the sun on the roof terrace, or read books in the peace by the side of the pool. There had been no reason to venture outside into the mayhem of the city, but suddenly, today, everyone had started to get itchy feet. Unwilling to let them go alone, Mahmoud had taken Laura, Kate and the little twins for a look around the souk: the network of market stalls that packed every inch around the main square.

With the French boys up on the roof terrace – showing off to Inez and Carmen, who were sunbathing, reading magazines and pretending not to notice them – Rachel found herself alone with Gabriel.

They were sitting on cushions by the pool. Rachel could not remember when they had last spent time together, just the two of them. Gabriel had been spreading himself thinly among all of them and, at first, sitting with her feet in the cool water, Rachel could hear nothing in her mind.

Gabriel did not seem uncomfortable with the silence, but Rachel pushed.

Talk to me
, she said, with her thoughts.
Tell me where we’re going
.

We’re close
, Gabriel’s mind spoke back.
Our journey is near its end
.

There was something about his words that gave Rachel a great sense of relief, a feeling that this might all soon be over. But there was also something sad in his tone; something … final that suggested the ending might not be a completely happy one. She was about to push him further when a clatter of noise in the corridor told her that her mother and the others had returned. The little twins ran across the courtyard to Rachel and Gabriel.

“Look at us!” Morag shouted. She pointed at her and Duncan’s identical outfits of hooded djellabas and brightly coloured slippers.

“Same as mine,” Mahmoud said proudly.

Laura Sullivan grinned. “We thought they should blend in a bit.”

“We saw snake-charmers,” Morag said excitedly. “And monkeys in the square.”

Duncan did not need prompting. “King cobra, green mamba, corn snake…”

“That’s good,” Rachel said.

Duncan ignored the interruption and continued reeling off a list of everything they had seen. “Barbary ape, monitor lizard, chameleon, tortoise…”

“I bought you a few things, Rach,” Kate said. Her lip was trembling as she handed Rachel a parcel of clothes: a thick white cardigan to wear in the evening, a woollen hat and
some furry boots. “I thought you could do with a change from those filthy jeans and sweats.”

Rachel looked down at her stained and torn sweatshirt. Clothes were the last thing she had been thinking about for the past few days.

“I got some stuff for Adam too…” Kate’s face contorted as she hugged another bundle of clothes to her chest. Laura tried to put an arm round Kate’s shoulder, but was firmly shrugged off; the polite level of communication that had grown between them in the past days shrugged off with it. “Find him,” Kate said. “Find my son, you…”

Her words tailed off as the tears came and she ran upstairs. Laura quickly bustled Morag and Duncan away to their room and Mahmoud made himself scarce.

Rachel found herself alone with Gabriel again, but the moment of quiet intimacy had gone. She felt some of her mother’s anger. “Why did you let them take Adam?”

Gabriel turned and looked at her. “I didn’t
let
them. They just did. You haven’t got it yet, have you? I don’t control everything; I can’t manage
every
event. People like me have been overpowered and destroyed before. I can do some things, but there are times when I need help. From you. From the others.”

Gabriel looked deep into her eyes and Rachel became a little frightened at the ruthlessness she glimpsed beneath the green. He paused, as if considering whether or not to say what was on his mind, but Rachel could already read it.

The thought was out in the open.

I told you there might be sacrifices
.

Anger flashed and burned deep inside her. Adam had been silent since they’d been here. She’d tried, and failed, to make contact. The notion that her brother was a “sacrifice” was more than she could take. Her fist lashed out, hard and fast, at Gabriel’s face. But in the fraction of a second before it smashed into his nose, Gabriel’s hand had taken hold of Rachel’s fist, gripping it tight, pulling her close.

For a split second, Rachel thought he might be going to kiss her.

“Why are we here?” Rachel shouted into his face, recovering herself and wrestling her fist away. “Where the hell are we going?”

She saw a rare look of uncertainty slide across Gabriel’s features. He broke eye contact. “I don’t know exactly,” he said. He stared down into the pool. “I’m waiting for guidance.”

A
dam was dreaming about home…