The Taken (30 page)

It could have been minutes or hours later when the strange group finally reached the high ground that led to the clearing. Alex had the strange feeling that it had been both, and her brain accepted that paradox. The whole of the in between was a paradox. Alive and dead. Real and unreal. All one and the same in between.

As the trees thinned, the children behind her fell back slightly, finding places to hide where they could peer round the safe bark and watch the clearing without having to cross into the arena. The rain pattered hard through the trees but at the edge the wind was barely a breeze. Not that it really mattered. Alex’s skin was soaked from the inside out. It had been the whole time she’d been there, however long that was.

When Alex stepped into the open, only Callum, Alan, and the tunic girl came with her. For a moment, she just stared, feeling the rainwater falling from the leaves above and trickling down her skin. The air was still in the clearing, the storm paused, but it smelled rotten and sweet, like the breath of an old man who’d been dying for a long time. Around them she could 296

almost hear the drip of the water held back in the woods, away from its maker.

To her left, Peter was tied to a tree, his yellow coat in a heap by his feet, and she could see he had been crying, but now he was just staring at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Slowly, Alex raised one finger to her lips to keep him quiet.

On the other side of the clearing, next to the ledge by the river, lay a fallen log, gnarled, thick, and rotten, and on it, his head in his hands, sat the Catcher Man. Blue veins shone through the pale skin of his skull, and a thick network of crisscrosses ran up his neck where it emerged from the black collar of his coat. She was sure the veins hadn’t been visible when she’d seen him crouching by Alan Harrison’s broken body. The hands that held that huge head seemed too weak to do so. You’re dying. The thought hit Alex like a punch in the face. She’s draining you.

In the space between Alex and the Catcher Man, oblivious to her arrival, Melanie and two boys were dragging Laura toward the edge of the ravine. The crying girl was pulling back so hard that her bottom was almost on the ground, but still they dragged her forward. Melanie was laughing. “You can jump or we’ll push you, it’s up to you.”

Laura shrieked as the edge came a foot closer. The two boys held onto her arms and Melanie grabbed a fistful of Laura’s hair and tugged hard on it. “You’re just like your mother, a scaredycat, scaredycat!”

It seemed to Alex that the madness shone out from the long-dead girl; what had been a seed of insanity in the child had grown out of all proportion in this strange place, fed by the power she’d drained from the creature on the log. This part of the wood was special;

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Alex could feel the magical energy thrumming through the soles of her feet and this was the place where Melanie had been taken. Maybe that’s what had given her the edge over the other children. Or maybe it was just her inherent insanity that gave her more manipulative strength.

Alex sighed, the small lump of cold in her core tugging at her, and despite the dead air she felt her hair lifting with the breeze, the tingle running from her hands all the way up her arms with some dread power.

The children had changed her and she wasn’t sure it was a good thing, but for now, she just had to use whatever those changes had brought. And despite the cold and the tingling, she knew what had to be done.

“You need to stop this!” The trees around her shook as she shouted and even the three children with her stepped back slightly.

Nearly at the edge of the ravine, Melanie froze and looked up, her expression one of total madness and fury under the perfect blond curls. It was the face of someone much older than ten, staring out from smooth cherubic cheeks. “What are you doing here?” She stabbed a finger at Alex. “You can’t be here! I didn’t bring you here!” The words came out with a torrent of spit, her anger flying out of her.

The two boys holding Laura hesitated for a second, shocked by the combination of the new arrival and Melanie’s outburst, and the girl took advantage of the moment, tearing herself free with a grunt and running to Alex’s side.

“I said you have to stop this!” Alex called the words out again, louder this time, and Laura flinched, covering her ears.

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Melanie laughed, running to the tree and tugging at the rope around Peter. “You can’t make me! You don’t belong here! You can’t stop me!” Her eyes shone manically. “I don’t know how you got here, but you’ll never go back. I won’t let you!” Her fingers pulled at the ropes around the little boy. “I was going to let him go. Not now!” Despite her protestations, there was a hot overeagerness in her voice and movement that hinted at desperation. Things were happening that were out of her control, that she didn’t understand, and she didn’t like it.

The two boys that had been helping Melanie stared at Alex and then slowly pulled back, away from the little girl with only one red shoe on. They’d realized something that Melanie hadn’t. Alex wasn’t talking to her. She was talking to the Catcher Man.

Slowly, he raised his head out of his hands. “I knew you were coming.”

This time, although Alex felt the power of his words trembling her insides, her ears didn’t hurt. She nodded to him. “You have to stop this.”

He shrugged and for an instant the land underneath them rippled with his movement. “I don’t know how.”

Alex stepped forward, and in the one move she had crossed the clearing and was standing in front of him. Cupping his cold heavy head with her hands, she lifted his chin and gazed into his black eyes. For a moment she glimpsed the worlds beyond worlds within him, the faces of the children layered in his head, and the awful exhausting tiredness; then she pulled back, knowing that if she went all the way inside, she would never find her way out.

She smiled. “I do.”

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Behind her, Melanie was letting out a tirade of insuits as she tried to grip the wriggling toddler, feeling her plans slip through her fingers with him, and Alex turned to face her. Across the clearing, watching with the others, her life-brightness standing out, Laura gasped. “Alex, your eyes… your eyes are black…,” but Alex raised her hand to silence her. Not now. No distractions now. My eyes are black, how can my eyes be black? His eyes are black. … She pushed the thought away and looked down at the Catcher Man.

“You have to take the choice back.”

From behind the trees, Alex could hear the hushed breath of whispers running through the children. Take the choice back. He can take the choice back.

The Catcher Man was staring at her, and inside she felt another small part of core turn into nothing and freeze. In her peripheral vision, she could make out Melanie pulling little Peter toward the edge. Time ticked loudly, buzzing in her head. In the forest around them the storm fiercely howled as the Catcher Man tried to reconcile what she had said with his acceptance of how things should be, that the choice was given, not taken back, all those time lines playing out against the dark backdrop of his eyes, Alex watching them like a silent movie.

Reaching down, she took one of his hands, ignoring the electricity as his tingling skin met hers, and pulled him to his feet. “You have to take the choice back. And you have to do it now. While you still can.” She wasn’t even sure she’d spoken the words out loud or whether they’d run down through her fingertips and into his. “The choice is yours. Not hers. Take it back.”

His fingers squeezed hers for a moment and she felt 300

it in the muscles of her ribs, contracting them, forcing all the breath out of her, until he let go of her hand and pulled himself up tall. He turned to face the clearing.

“Melanie.” The word was nothing more than a whisper, but as it spilled out of him, everything around them stopped. Peter froze, his body twisted in its struggle, half upright, half tumbling to the floor. Looking at the edge of the clearing behind her, Alex could make out tiny drops of rain, paused in their journey from the leaves to the sodden forest floor. Across from her, Laura’s face was still pulled wide in an expression of shocked concern, staring back at Alex, unblinking. Behind the trees, small pale faces peered out like statues, stuck in a moment they were leaving behind.

Nothing moved, nothing was sentient except for her, the Catcher Man, and the girl still struggling to move Peter from his stuck position. Giving up, she let go of his arm and stamped her foot. “You bitch! You fucking bitch!” Her shriek cut through the silence. “You shouldn’t even fucking be here! This is my place!

My place!” Howling, she launched herself full pelt across the clearing, small hands raised to attack Alex.

“No, Melanie. This is my place.” The Catcher Man’s words were only a whisper, but they dug into Alex’s head, making her cry out and cover her ears, crouching onto the ground. When she took her hands away, there was blood on her fingers.

What is this place doing to me? What is it doing to me? Looking upward, trying to ignore the throb of her burst eardrum, she watched the pale hand rise sharply, its palm facing toward the running girl, blue fire running up and down the sleeve of that long leather coat.

Everything changed all at once. Melanie was thrown 301

up in the air, the scream knocked out of her with the shock, falling awkwardly backwards, and her outstretched arms could do nothing to stop her landing in a ghostly version of herself, sitting on the clearing and putting on her shoes.

Peter’s whole form shimmered and paled, as if he were there and not there, as Alex guessed was the case for them all as past and present collided. The little boy unfroze, first looking as if he would run toward Alex, and then turning to run to Laura and the other pale, awoken children on the far side. Do I look that frightening? My eyes are black and my ears are bleeding. What else has changed?

Focusing on the buckle of her first red sandal, Melanie was oblivious to them, locked back in the past, when she was still alive and breathing, the in between having not yet happened to her. She must have heard something, because her head raised and tilted slightly, the second shoe forgotten.

Only hearing the roar of damage from inside her ear, Alex watched the edge of the clearing, knowing what was coming next. A few seconds later, the women emerged, transluscent. Alex gazed at their ghostly forms in wonder. They were the women she knew and yet not. Even in the green gloom, looking at their flickering outlines she could see the differences. Enid Tucker’s waist was still slim, her shape almost hourglass rather than thick-waisted and matronly as she had been in all the time Alex had known her. Leaving the second shoe on the ground, Melanie pulled herself to her feet, smug smile faltering.

Another woman, tall and willowy—Kay’s mum, that’s Kays mum standing next to Aunt Mary, Aunt Mary with no gray hair—bent to the ground, her eyes 302

firmly focused on the child, and picked up a solid twig. Rain had started to fall in the past, fall heavily, and the clothes of the women were sticking to their skin as they moved toward the little girl. They were speaking but Alex couldn’t hear the words. The pain in her ears was receding, but the deafness remained. Not that she needed to hear what they were saying. She’d heard it before, back in the real world, poured out of Mary’s soul.

The first branch slapped against Melanie’s leg and she jumped slightly, backing away, as the other women circled. The women were glowing now, almost radiant in their attack, their vengeance all they could see, all they wanted. They couldn’t see that with every taunt, every jab of the stick, Melanie stepped one foot closer to the ravine, which only seconds ago and thirty years in the future, the little girl would be dragging Laura and then Peter toward. Alex’s heart ached for the strong and vital women reenacting the past in front of her. Every poke of their twigs was leading them to their own destruction and the destruction of those they were doing this to protect. Staring at the scene, Alex wondered who was most insane, the pack of women, mad pagans in the rain, or the girl, her own composure gone, her face terrified as she slowly backed away.

And then she took that final step backward, the fear on her face changing to confusion, and then terror as she realized that there was no solid ground behind her, just crumbling mud and then empty space. Her arms flailed forward, desperately trying to regain some balance as she tipped backwards, and then she fell. Disappeared down the ravine.

The temporary insanity dropped away from the 303

women as if washed off by the rain. They stared aghast, hands raised to mouths and hair, as the moment sank in. Without thinking, as one, they released their twigs and branches.

Mary was the first to kneel carefully at the edge and call down. Kay’s mum joined her, their faces intent as they shouted things Alex couldn’t hear down to the little girl. Enid Tucker was pacing the clearing, wringing her hands and muttering to herself. Mary and Charlotte Keeler pulled themselves to their feet, their eyes shaking with desperation as they shouted at each other. Eventually, something was agreed—we need to go and get a rope, we’ll be back soon, everything will be fine, we’ll be no time at all—and with Edith dragging Mary, they disappeared offstage, swallowed into the woods of the past. Mary’s one look back confirmed what she had told them in the pub; what had haunted her all her life: That she knew they weren’t going to get back in time. And that she’d be hearing that desperate plea for the rest of her life.

The clearing empty, Alex stared at the edge of the ravine. What now? Did they just have to wait for her to die? Thoughts of Callum in that cellar, and Alan Harrison lying broken on the pavement filled her head. All their fear. How afraid was Melanie now? She glanced up at the Catcher Man beside her, his face impassive, and wondered how this was affecting him, or if it was affecting him at all. Unsure of whether she was doing it for herself or for him, she slipped her hand into his. This time the electricity seemed warm, not shocking, but she gasped as the sounds flooded her head. She could hear, she could hear Melanie’s screams—I can’t move my legs, I can’t feel them! Don’t leave me, please 304