“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” She sighs. She looks out to the lake and makes her way down the garden.
“Okay. I run into the house, you keep a lookout,” Carrick says, getting ready to run.
“Wait.” I grab him. It takes my two hands around his biceps to hold him back. “We can’t just leave her. She’s dangerously close to the water. She’ll fall in.”
“What is it with you helping old people?” he asks, but his voice is soft and his touch on my hand is warm.
She’s lying on the grass, leaning over the edge, trying to reach down to the lake with her watering can. I make my way over to her. I take the can from her, and without saying a word, I scoop it full with water and hand it back to her.
She eyes me warily, not coldly but curiously, as if trying to place me.
“Is he coming for me tonight?” she asks with a sweet voice, almost childlike.
I don’t say a word, unsure as to what she means.
“Our Lord. He’s sent you to take me. It’s all right.” She straightens up. “I’m ready. I’ll see my Andy again.” She looks back at the house. “I should make my peace with her. I hope the Lord will be kind to her.” She looks at me hopefully. “She has done things for reasons she thinks are right. I’m her mother, I’ll go before him and speak for her. But the others … they’ll never forgive her. I hope they forgive me. It’s because of her they’re Flawed.” She hardens again. “I know that I don’t remember much but I remember that. She’s looking for something. Do you know what it is she’s looking for?”
I nod.
“Every night, she goes to the garage. Does he know where it is? If he does, I think she’d find peace. It’s driving her…” A light goes on in the cottage and we both look up.
“She’s coming,” she whispers. “How much time do I have before he takes me?”
My heart is banging in my chest at the sight of Mary May stepping outside and breaking out into a run across the grass.
“Mother!” she screams angrily.
I hold my finger over my lips, hoping Carrick’s frantic waving won’t catch her eye. Mary May’s mother nods. “You’ll come for me?”
I nod.
At peace with that, she takes the watering can and I quickly duck out of view in the darkness, behind a bush. Carrick throws me a warning look, but we don’t move, there’s nowhere for us to move to now, except into the lake. If we have to, we will. He places a protective arm around my waist, he holds me tightly.
Mary May’s mother is looking out over the lake like it’s for the last time, drinking it in with an air of finality, not sadness. Contentment, satisfaction, acceptance. I feel guilty for this misunderstanding, but she does seem happy with it.
“Mother!” Mary May’s voice has an edge to it, a growl. She’s in her nightdress, too, and unhappily traipses across the grass to her mother.
“I was collecting water for the flowers,” her mother says distantly. “There has been no rain for days.”
“How many times have I told you not to lean over the edge? It’s dangerous! You could fall in. How did you … Mother, where did this water come from?”
“The angel, the kind angel. She’s here for me.”
“Angel?” Carrick whispers, covering his face with his hands.
I don’t want to explain myself out of fear Mary May will hear me speak. With her supersonic Whistleblower senses, I’m surprised she hasn’t sniffed us out already. She takes the watering can from her mother. “No more angel nonsense, Mother. It’s after eleven; you should be in bed. I’m going to have to get an alarm system if you keep this up.”
Carrick and I look at each other. No alarm system.
“Andy likes to have the flowers watered, he insists.”
“Daddy is gone, Mommy, remember?”
“Alice likes to pick the petals and use them for her art.”
Mary May sucks in air. “Don’t you dare say her name in my company,” she hisses. She empties the water back into the lake, takes her mother’s elbow, and guides her back to the house.
“Where are they all?” her mother asks, in a desperate childish way. “Why won’t you ever tell me? I want to see my children. I want to know that they’re all safe. I want to say good-bye.”
“You don’t need to say good-bye, you’re safe here with me, remember? Just you and me, Mother, we don’t need the others.”
Carrick and I watch them go back inside the house.
“She’s even more messed up than I thought,” he whispers.
She’s training the future Whistleblowers. I think of Art and of how much she’s poisoning his mind. Who knows what she has told him about me. She could tell him any lie and he’d probably believe it. And am I trying to make excuses for Art again? I shake him out of my head.
A light goes on in the front room.
“Mother’s bedroom,” Carrick says. “Where the hell do we find this snow globe? It could be anywhere.”
“The garage,” I say, looking to the connected building.
“How do you know?”
“Her mother said she’s looking for something in the garage. It must be in there.”
We see Mary May pass by the back door again, then another light goes on and reveals the kitchen. She keeps walking and goes into the connected garage. A light goes on in the two high windows. The only way into the garage is through the house, or through the car entrance at the other side.
We hear thrashing sounds, boxes being moved, crashing, then screaming, demented screeching. It’s disturbing, like a witch being burned at the stake, a tortured scream of anguish and frustration.
It sounds as though she’s trashing the place, and I’m afraid she will smash the globe and find the footage hidden inside, or damage it. It’s chilly outside, the breeze coming from the lake. I shudder in my thin T-shirt; Carrick takes me in his arms and kisses my neck, and I’m warmed instantly by his body heat.
Mary May searches for twenty minutes, then there’s silence. She’s exhausted from her frenzy. The light goes out in the garage. She appears in the kitchen, haggard, her hair standing up crazily, loose from its usual pristine bun. She goes to the sink, takes a drink of water, stares outside almost as if she’s seeing us. I shiver again and Carrick tightens his grip on me.
The light goes out and she disappears. Her bedroom is in the front of the cottage, her mother’s facing us in the back.
“I say give her forty-five minutes, then we’ll move,” Carrick says. “It’s going to take her a while to settle after that frustration.”
I sigh impatiently. So close yet so very far.
“We can’t wait that long, Carrick. If Crevan discovers that I’m free, who do you think he’ll call? She’ll be the first one.”
“I told you, we have time,” he says, looking at his watch. “They’ve delayed the surgery until the morning. Your mom isn’t going in for at least another seven hours. She won’t be going in alone. Tina is guarding Juniper. Crevan isn’t there. Everything is okay. If Crevan arrives, Tina will let me know.”
“Seven hours is too much time.” I shake my head, thinking of all the things that can go wrong in that time. I settle down to watch the house, with a sick feeling in my stomach.
Granddad locked up in Highland Castle while they build a case against him, their line about holding him for twenty-four hours an unsurprising lie; Juniper in a dodgy makeshift hospital, my mom about to barge in there declaring injustice and criminality; Carrick on the Wanted list. We’re all in danger now. I can’t drag them down with me. This plan needs to work.
FIFTY-ONE
WE WATCH MARY May’s house like hawks. Forty minutes later, when it is still and she hasn’t stirred for some time, we make our move. Carrick ducks down and moves quickly across the yard, to the garage, to see if he can gain access without needing to go through the house. There’s no door, no lock to fiddle with, no glass to break, and the two windows high up are too narrow to slide through. We have no option but to gain entry through the house.
I go to the mother’s bedroom window, heart pounding, and gently rap on the window, praying Mary May isn’t inside.
Her mother appears at the window, which startles me. A bright white gown, skin and gray hair more eerie than angelic in this light. I put my finger across my lips. I motion to the front door and she moves quietly. The door opens and I step inside, leaving the door open for Carrick, and follow her to her room. The house is so quiet and I tiptoe, while Carrick and his boots are so heavy it’s harder for him to be nimble through the house, so I almost have a heart attack each time he bumps something or the floor creaks. The house smells of baking, mixed with a stale musty stench.
Across the narrow hall is Mary May’s bedroom. The door is ajar, presumably so she can be on the lookout for her mother’s wanderings. I go inside her mother’s room and close the door gently.
“Sit, sit,” she says, holding her hand out.
I sit in the chair beside her. She is sitting up in her bed, propped up by pillows.
“I’m ready for him,” she says, lifting her chin bravely.
I freeze, not knowing quite what to say, hoping Carrick will locate the snow globe before this all unravels.
“Do you know what it is that Mary’s searching for?” she asks again. I nod.
“You will find it for her?”
“I’m trying,” I whisper.
“And will it make it right again?”
I nod.
“All I want is to see my children again,” she says, her eyes filling with tears, her voice sounding childlike. “She took them away from me.”
I reach out and hold her hand to comfort her.
“She was always a little … peculiar. As a child, she wanted things so much, too much. She loved Henry so much; she was … obsessed with him. When Henry fell in love with her little sister, Alice, Mary couldn’t bear it. She turned on Alice, turned on everyone in the family who hid it from her. She tore us all apart.” Her tears fall; even after all this time, the pain is raw. “But despite what she has done, I’m her mother. I just ask that the Lord is kind to her,” she says, pleading at me with her eyes. “She has hurt so many, but it is because she is hurting.”
I offer her a tissue, and she wipes away the tears.
She gathers herself, as if preparing for what’s about to come. “I’m not scared. I think it means that I’m ready.”
There’s a rap on the bedroom window and we both jump with fright. I’m sure it’s all over now; Mary May has called the Whistleblowers. They’ll be outside surrounding the house, a helicopter hovering above with a spotlight on me. Flawed TV capturing the live arrest. Heart pounding, I pull back the curtains and it’s Carrick, shaking the snow globe at me.
“Who is it?” she asks fearfully, pulling the blankets tight around her.
I feel giddy, the adrenaline pumping. I take her hands and squeeze them warmly. “It’s not your time to go,” I whisper.
“No?” she asks, surprised.
I shake my head and smile. “Go back to sleep. You will see your family soon. I’ll make sure of it.”
I help her lie down, wrapping the blankets tightly around her tiny frame. She closes her eyes and relaxes, a smile on her face at the very thought of her reunion.
FIFTY-TWO
SIX HOURS LATER, Raphael Angelo and I are in Judge Sanchez’s home. A glass-and-marble penthouse apartment in the tallest building in the city, it’s a stark contrast to Raphael’s mountain retreat. There is big money in being a Guild judge, branding citizens and looking down on others, from the bench in the courtroom to the penthouse apartment in the city. People are mere specks in the park below her window, almost nonexistent, decisions are made without a connection to humanity.
But reality has been brought into Judge Sanchez’s home now. She’s barely awake, the sleep still in her eyes, thanks to us bursting into her home at the crack of dawn.
She is almost unrecognizable without the red lipstick and matching red-framed glasses for which she is known. She wears no makeup, her hair is scraped back in a clip, and she wraps her body in a black cashmere cardigan as if she’s cold, but it’s not cold in here at all.
We stand in an open-plan kitchen/living/dining room; it’s enormous, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass ceiling. She catches me looking at it.
“My son, Tobias, is a stargazer,” she says. “The reason we bought here.”
“I believe the professional word is astronomer,” a teenager says, appearing in the kitchen, looking sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, tightening his robe belt. He looks around the same age as me: He’s handsome, stands tall, with an air of arrogance.
“Only if you’re paid to look at them,” she says, focusing on the laptop computer Raphael is placing down before her.
Her son looks at me, registers me, then looks to his mom in surprise. Celestine North is in his home.
“Coffee, Mom?” he asks.
I find it hard to believe that she could be anybody’s mother. That she would have a heart big enough to love and care for somebody. The mirror has two faces. Though, I suppose Sanchez is trying to help me, even if it’s for her own gain.
She shakes her head to the coffee.
“Yes, please,” Raphael calls to him.
“My mom likes to look down, I like to look up,” he says, brewing the coffee. “Would you like to come upstairs and have a look?” he asks me. “I have a telescope in the atrium.”
I don’t want to see what Raphael and Judge Sanchez are about to watch, but I know I should be here. It’s too important to miss.
“No, thanks,” I say politely.
He runs his eyes over me. I see that his robe bears the crest of the most prestigious boarding school in the country.
“They shouldn’t have found you Flawed,” he says loudly, as if he’s deliberately trying to annoy his mom. “I told her that. It was a preposterous verdict. Something sinister at play, I’m guessing.”
The USB was found, just as Tina said, in the base of the snow globe. The snow globe had been set aside from all my other belongings in the garage; Carrick hadn’t taken long to find it. It was as though Mary May’s allegiance to the Guild had stopped her from even considering that the proof that would destroy her leader could lie in something so close to her heart. The USB was sitting inside the false bottom, which was easily found after unscrewing it. After finding it, we called Raphael from the burner phone we took from Enya’s campaign office, and he collected us from the lake. I didn’t want to view the footage. I left the car while Raphael and Carrick watched it. From their faces afterward I could tell what needed to be seen had been captured. Raphael couldn’t look at me, and Carrick couldn’t stop.
I’d thought it was best not to bring Carrick here with us. Someone like Sanchez uses what she needs and discards the rest. Carrick has no value to Sanchez and could very easily have been sent straight to Highland Castle on first sight. And besides, right about now my mom and Bob Tinder are storming the Whistleblowers’ training center, and soon Crevan will know I’m free. Carrick is safer away from me, and I need him to help my mom and Juniper.
I check the burner for an update from Carrick. There’s nothing.
I look into the kitchen at the television, wanting to see if there’s any news. No surprise Sanchez watches News 24, Crevan media. But there don’t seem to be any breaking news reports about my mom and Juniper, only of course there wouldn’t be, not on News 24. They would bury that detail. Bob Tinder won’t.
Tobias hands me a cup of coffee even though I didn’t ask for one, and one to Raphael, too. I need it, though—I haven’t slept all night and I’m exhausted, running only on adrenaline.
“Thank you.” I take it from him, touched by the simple act of kindness. I smell coffee, I know it’s coffee. I taste. Nothing.
“Tobias, out,” Sanchez says sternly, and her son strolls away, chin up, shoulders back, newspaper rolled in his hand, off somewhere to read it.
I position myself behind Sanchez so I have a view of the sc
reen. Now that I’m with Judge Sanchez I need to see what she sees, and I need to see how she sees it.
“Who else has a copy of this?” Sanchez asks before Raphael plays it.
“This is the original,” Raphael says. “We haven’t shown it to anyone.”
“This was filmed on Mr. Berry’s mobile phone. He must have transferred it to a computer in order to save it to the USB,” she says.
“We believe Judge Crevan found the laptop and memory card when he found Mr. Berry. This is the only footage remaining. The footage he has been searching for,” Raphael explains.
“And you expect me to believe you didn’t make another copy before you got here?” She raises her eyebrows.
Raphael looks at me. “Give it to her.”
My mouth falls open in surprise. “Raphael.”
“Absolute honesty,” he says. “It’s the only way for this to work, Celestine.”
Annoyed, I take the copy we made and put it on the table in front of Judge Sanchez. She pockets it immediately.
They press play and Raphael sits back in his chair, knowing what’s about to come. Sanchez sits forward.
I hover in the back, chew all my fingernails down.
The picture begins. The image is shaky. I see a floor, then it bumps around, blurry, loud voices and commotion. A glimpse of my mom’s shoes, moving away, my dad yelling, the mess as they’re all removed from the viewing room. Sanchez looks at Raphael, annoyed, as if this is a waste of her time.
The camera lifts and the Branding Chamber comes into view. You can see the back of Crevan, in his bloodred gown. He blocks me in the chair.
The phone lowers again, more shouting, more commotion, a blurry picture.
“Oh, come on,” Sanchez snaps impatiently. “So Crevan is in the chamber at the time of the branding, this proves nothing.”
“Keep watching,” Raphael says calmly.
Mr. Berry moves to get a better view. He’s standing outside the door, which is why I never saw him. Crevan moves and I’m in view. I’m strapped in the chair, and seeing myself like that is upsetting enough. My mouth is clamped open. I feel sick at the memory of that horrendous moment.