“Agreed?” Piper says, and holds out her hand.
“Agreed,” I answer. We shake on it, and that is that.
Later we talk it through. Zak says he’ll take us, but only if our dad agrees Piper can go. He seems to think that’ll never happen. Piper looks confident, and I’m starting to understand why. She has a way of making things happen how she wants them to, doesn’t she?
We’re sitting on the sofa, the three of us. Piper is in the middle, one arm linked with Zak’s, the other with mine.
And somehow that feels all right. There isn’t such a gulf between Zak and me, not with Piper the bridge between us. She’s my sister. Maybe I’m starting to get a sense of what that is supposed to feel like?
Piper is telling us stories from her childhood: funny moments, significant ones. Her first bicycle, her broken arm when she fell from it. Her voice is warm and lively and lulling me toward sleep, but then a few details snap into place, and my eyes open wider.
“Piper, how old did you say you were when you broke your arm?”
“Six. It was the spring after my sixth birthday.”
“How did it happen? Did you lose control, or hit something, or what? Can you remember?”
“Actually I do remember, partly because it was so weird. I was absolutely fine and then I just flew off the bike. Like somebody had plucked me off it and thrown me on the ground.”
“That was in April. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was Easter—”
“Easter Sunday. In the morning.”
Piper twists in her seat a little to look me in the eye. There is intense curiosity on her face, and on Zak’s, too. “How on earth did you know? Did Mum tell you about it?”
“No. She never even told me you existed, remember? But I broke my arm when I was six, too. On the morning of the same day.”
“How?”
“I was climbing a tor, and I fell.”
“Wow,” Zak says. “Is that, like, some sort of weird coincidence, or what?”
Piper and I are staring into each other’s eyes. We both shake our heads slowly. “Not a coincidence,” we say at the same moment.
I shake my head. “You go.”
“It can’t be a coincidence,” Piper says, “that the same moment you fell, I flew off my bike for no apparent reason.”
“Do you think this is some freaky twin linkage thing?” Zak looks skeptical. “Has either of you had any other major injuries or anything?”
I shake my head no; so does Piper. “Just the usual. Bumps and scrapes. Though . . .” And I stop. Some things I don’t like to talk about.
“What?” Piper says.
“When I was thirteen, I was very ill. I thought I would die.”
Piper’s face goes still. “So was I. They said it was flu, but it wasn’t the usual sort of flu.”
“I had these horrible dreams. They went on even when I was awake.”
“Hallucinations from the fever? Me too.”
“You’ve never mentioned that before,” Zak says to Piper.
“I don’t like to think about it,” she says.
“Me neither,” I say.
“What were the hallucinations? If they were the same, that’d be way bizarre,” Zak says, clearly very intrigued. I don’t want to say, and I can see by Piper’s face that she doesn’t, either.
“It’s too late at night for that,” Piper says. “Let’s change the subject.”
“All right. To what?” I say. All traces of my earlier sleepiness are gone. I can feel the cold fingers of memory, and need to focus on something else, anything, to make them go away.
“I’ve gone on enough,” Piper says. “Let’s hear some stuff about you.”
“Like what?”
“Where did you go to school?”
“I’ve never been to a school. Before I went to yours today, that is.”
“You mean you were homeschooled?”
“Not exactly.”
Zak and Piper exchange a glance. “Surely the authorities—” Zak begins.
I shake my head. “The authorities were scared of Gran.”
Piper
Two cups of tea: one for Dad, one for me. I carry them upstairs and pause at the study door.
He looks up from his laptop and glances at the clock. “It’s a bit late for a school night.”
I walk across, put his tea in front of him, and keep mine in my hands.
“Well, yeah, about that. I don’t think I was ready to go back.”
“Petal. School is important.”
“I know. But there’s no point being there if all I’m doing is messing things up. Besides, it’s just one more day, and then it’s half term next week. And there is something I want to do.”
“What’s that?”
I put my tea down, walk to the other side of the desk, and sit on the edge of it next to him like I used to do when I was much younger.
“You know how I said I wanted to find where Mum is from? I found it.”
He’s surprised. “Really? How?”
“I called hotels on Dartmoor and found the one she used to work at: Two Bridges Hotel. And the house she grew up in is close by.” I leave out the links that led me there, and the other daughter who confirmed my guesses and brought it all together.
“Impressive detective work.”
“I want to see where Mum grew up. I want to meet my grandmother.”
He takes my hand. “Petal, I understand how you feel. But I know your mum was estranged from her own mother, and I’m sure she had good reason. I always got the impression that your grandmother was somehow dangerous. I don’t like to think of you meeting this woman. Who knows what she is capable of?”
“My grandmother isn’t in her house anymore. The hotel said she’s had a stroke and is in hospital. She may not live much longer,” I add, embellishing further.
He takes that in, the change it presents. “I see.” He pauses, has a sip of tea. “What is it you want to do?”
“I want to go to Two Bridges, see the house where Mum grew up. And visit my grandmother in hospital. No matter what may have happened between them years ago, you don’t need to worry about an ill old woman in a hospital bed.”
He stares levelly back, finally nods. “All right, then. I’ll see if I can get some time off.” He opens the calendar on his screen, surveys it silently, but I know he has trials. “It’ll be at least a month before I can get away.”
“Let Zak take me.”
He gives me a dad look. “You are only seventeen. You’re not going on a trip with your boyfriend.”
“Honestly, Dad! This isn’t a romantic adventure. I want to find Mum’s past, my family. My grandmother is old, alone, and in hospital—what if she dies before I get there?”
A long pause. “I’ll think about it.”
A bit later there’s a knock on my door. “Yes?” I say.
Dad peeks in. “I’ve spoken to Zak.” So very predictable. “You can go.”
I smile to myself as I get ready for bed. Everything is working; everything is coming together.
I’m burning.
I throw the blankets off, stagger out of bed, and open the window. It’s night, and I’m alone. The moon is full and fuller; then it is red, on fire, and falling from the sky.
I scream and crouch on the floor, arms over my head, but there is nowhere to hide.
Arooooooo! There is howling in the distance, faint but terrifying. Then louder, and closer—in the garden below.
They’re creeping up the stairs, then into my room. Their howling—arooooooo!—is so loud that it fills my head, turns my insides to liquid. I’m afraid to look, afraid not to.
They’re with me, in the flames: huge black hounds, with red eyes, foul tongues dripping over sharp fangs. They smell of death, despair.
They crouch at my feet, waiting for me to die.
Somewhere there is a voice: one that soothes. Mummy? She tells me it will pass, that I’ll be all right—that she lived
through this, and her mother, too, and there was nothing to be done but survive.
But still I burn.
Quinn
In Zak’s car, Ness is licking my face with great attention, not used to having someone lying down on the back seat in her zone. “I don’t think you missed anywhere,” I whisper to her, and wrap my arms around her a little too tight. She squirms until I let go. The car stops; Zak gets out. Ness runs out of the open front door behind him, and Zak calls her. The door shuts again.
I’m supposed to keep my head down until we’re gone, but I can’t stop myself from peeking through the window. The front door of the house opens, and Ness bounds across the lawn, Zak trailing behind. Piper stands there, and I duck down again before she can see me.
The phone rang late last night, not long after Piper had left. I heard Zak’s door open and imagined him crossing the hall in boxers and a T-shirt, like I saw him wearing that one night, and opening my door to answer the extension in this room—the one next to my bed. I imagined him sitting on the bed next to me, his body heat spreading to mine. Instead he went downstairs to pick it up there.
The house was still, quiet. His words were clear enough, and his half of the conversation was enough for me to catch the meaning. So before morning came, I knew we were going to Dartmoor the next day, that our dad had wanted to speak to Zak before agreeing. I heard Zak promise to take care of Piper and make some other promises that I’m sure equated to Piper not seeing him in his boxers any more than I will.
So just hours after I’d somehow promised to go there with Piper, it was all arranged. I lay there in bed last night, hour after hour, almost rigid with fear. Like an escaped convict, I’ve been caught. If I go back to my prison, will I ever get away again?
No, Quinn. Bad Quinn. All the times I’d been punished without even knowing why or what I’d done wrong. All the times my will was twisted, and I was made to do or say things I didn’t want to, didn’t believe. There was something about being there that crushed who I was. I’m only just starting to feel, away from that place—feel things that are my own. Even if they hurt, like with Zak, I’d rather pain that is mine than feeling nothing at all.
But apart from all the fear from the past, there is a deep sense of foreboding twisting in my gut. Going there could be dangerous for all of us. But how can I back out now, after what Piper has done for me?
I can’t.
After an almost sleepless night—and what sleep I did have, disturbed by nightmares—here I am: in the car. We’re about to head to the one place I was sure I never wanted to return to, ever again.
Time passes. A door opens at the house. There are voices. Footsteps. The boot opens; the car drops slightly as something is put in. The boot shuts.
The driver’s-side door opens; Zak gets in. “All right?” he says in a low voice.
“Yeah,” I say, just to agree with him rather than because I actually resemble all right. It’s all I can do to not jump up, rip the door open, and run.
“Piper said she wanted to have a word with her dad on her own. I think mostly to avoid him walking over to the car and seeing you.” His voice is quiet again, his head turned as if to adjust the radio.
“That’d be hard to explain.”
“Here she comes.”
There are footsteps. “Bye!” Piper’s voice calls out.
The car door opens, and Piper shoos Ness into the back seat with me, then gets in. The car starts. Her hand is waving.
The car reverses out of the drive and heads up the road. Piper laughs. “I didn’t think I’d ever get away. Road trip!”
“Can I sit up?” I ask.
She twists around. “Really sorry, do you mind just waiting until we at least clear Winchester? Someone might see the two of us.”
The radio is on low. The car sways back and forth. The lack of sleep is catching up with me, and I yawn, stretch, ball up my jacket under my head.
And with every heartbeat we get closer and closer to where I come from.
It’s dark. I’m running and running across the moors—taking risks on the uneven ground to fly as fast as I can.
Arooooooo! The mournful cries of Wisht Hounds follow behind, and the fear makes me dig deep and go even faster.
But I can’t keep up this pace much longer. Panic twists my guts.
They are getting closer.
There is a chorus of howls—not just behind me now, but around me as well. They are herding me to the most haunted place—the twisted place where deals are done, and hope is lost.
I scramble up a rocky slope, desperate to find a way to escape them.
I stop dead when I see her.
Her eyes are a brilliant blue, her coat thick, her long tail black. The black brush fox. She stares at my wrist—at Isobel’s bracelet hanging there.
The cries of the hounds freeze my blood. They are very near now, near enough that I can smell rank death on their breath, feel my own death getting closer.
The fox’s eyes are intelligent; she cocks her head to one side. She knows I am hers, that she is mine. With the hounds behind and the fox ahead, there is no real choice, but she wants it made freely.
Piper
I’m cold. Shivering starts from deep inside; all the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The sun is shining on my face, the car is warm, but the shivering continues. Ness whimpers, and I twist around to look at the back seat.
Quinn is asleep. Her face is pale, her lips moving silently, her body shaking, skin goose-pimpled. Ness is next to her, licking her hands as if trying to help.
I snap my seat belt open, turn, lean over the seat, and shake Quinn, hard.
She jumps violently, breathing in gasps; her eyes open—wild and unseeing.
“Quinn? Quinn!” I say. Ness barks, and Quinn’s eyes finally turn, focus first on Ness, then on me. Her breathing starts to calm. As her shivering subsides, so does mine. “Bad dream?”
“Something like that,” she says. She sits up, and I drop back into my seat in the front and do up my seat belt again.
I study her in the mirror. She’s still sitting up, but collapsed back against the seat. Pale, head turned as if she’s looking out the window, hand absently stroking Ness, but her eyes are almost glassy, as if she is not really registering anything in this world.
So Quinn had a nightmare—or should I say, daymare?—and I had a physical reaction to it. What the hell is that about? I shudder. Is it like the so-called flu we both had, and the broken arms? What would happen if one of us were ever seriously hurt? Or even died?
“Is everything OK?” Zak asks, with a quick glance from me to Quinn in the mirror, then back to the road.
“All right now. Are we there yet?”
“Just like the ninety-nine other times you’ve asked, no.”
“Is anyone besides me hungry?”
“Me!” Zak says. “Quinn, how about you? Want something to eat?”
She turns her head slowly. “Sure.”
The sun is still shining, and it’s warm for mid-October. Zak goes to fetch some lunch, and I pull Quinn and Ness to one of the picnic tables at the motorway service station, the one at the end—not too close to anyone else. We sit next to each other, and Ness bounces about as far as she can on her lead.
“Your hands are so cold,” I say to Quinn, holding them between mine. Her head droops against my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Her shoulders shrug. “Mostly. Sort of.”
“Is it where we’re going, or something else? Maybe that dream that you had in the car?”
“A bit of both,” Quinn says, denying neither. And warmth rushes through me: she finally trusts me a little—maybe even enough.
“What was your dream about?”
“I don’t really want to think about it.”
“What’s weird is that I knew you were having a nightmare. I got all shivery, and turned around and woke you up. I felt your dream.”
Quinn straightens
up. “That is on the side of strange.”
“So that’s why I’m wondering what it was about. I can think of a few other times when I’ve had weird feelings or reactions that didn’t seem to line up with what was happening to me at the time.”
Quinn looks at me properly now, thinking. She nods. “I’ve had experiences like that, too.”
“Is this a weird psychic twin thing? Or just a weird us thing?”
“How can we tell the difference? All we are is who we are.”
“Good point. So, will you tell me about your dream?”
Quinn shrugs. “It was just a stupid nightmare, of being chased on the moors, with dogs barking in the distance. As if I were the fox in a hunt.” She looks surprised as she says the last line. She thinks a moment. “Yes. Just like that.”
“Is that all?”
Quinn nods, but I get the feeling there is more she isn’t saying. She’s not trusting me enough, then; not yet.
“Piper, have you ever had dreams like that?” she asks.
“I don’t know about on the moors; I haven’t been there before, so I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve had dreams where I’m running over rough ground at night. But it’s not a nightmare—it’s exhilarating. I’m running and running.”
There’s more I’m not saying, too. In my dream, I’m the chaser, not the chased.
“How about last night?” Quinn says, voice hesitant. “Did you dream last night? I did.”
Now prickles run up my back. I nod. “I thought it was because we were talking about it at Zak’s, about—”
“When we had the fever,” Quinn interrupts, finishing my sentence. “That’s what I thought, too.”
“What did you dream about?”
“I was sick. Burning up, in bed. I got up, and there was a full moon, and—”
“And the moon was on fire. And there were these hounds there.”