Hidden Among Us (14 page)

“Really?” said the boy. He reached out and without even thinking I took his offered hand, chilly to the touch but not the deep cold of Rose’s. “Ah,” he whispered, never taking his eyes from mine. “So warm with that mortal blood. But look, Lissy, at your hands.”

I did. White and pale just like his. Never brown, but never sunburned either, not even a single freckle. And in that second I knew he was telling the truth.

Mum—

I was the only one. Not Rafe or Connie, blonde and tanned all year just like Dad. He wasn’t my father, was he? It made sense now. If Rafe or Connie had spoilt Dad’s secret about Elena, he would have forgiven them. I’d always known that. You could forgive your own child anything. But not the cuckoo hiding in your nest.

My eyes burned and tears poured down my face. The boy was telling the truth. My whole life was a puppet show. Nothing was real.

I stood, allowing him to raise me up, tears sliding down my neck as his cold hand gripped mine. “You might call me Larkspur,” my brother whispered.

Everything was fake. Every Christmas, each family holiday. Even the way everyone blamed Dad when he left Mum. It hadn’t been his fault. It was hers. They’d both cheated but she’d done it first. Such a long time ago.

“Why?” The word creaked out of my mouth. “It’s not your real name.” He knew mine. They all did.

He smiled. “Call me Larkspur,” he said, “because when I close my eyes, I do not see the walls of my father’s kingdom. I see a knotted grey sky pouring fresh rain on my face, I see the seven hundred colours of a hedgerow: hawthorn, dead nettle, dandelion, cowslip, meadowsweet and larkspur. As blue as your eyes, my sister.”

I drew my hands away, folded my arms across my chest. Even with bowls of fire everywhere, I still felt cold.

“Why am I here?” My voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else, cracked with fear.

And Larkspur smiled. “I will let our father tell you. Come with me. Kneel before the King.”

Larkspur reached out for my hand again but I snatched it away. I wasn’t going anywhere with him.

All I could hear was Rose laughing.

24

I stepped out onto the lawn, alone, drawing the heavy oak door shut against the hubbub from inside: laughing, shouting, the clink of broken china. Miles’s parties always got out of control, but now we’d entered a whole new league. The stars looked brittle and cold. The whole of the night sky was like a black glass bowl rising up above me.

I sensed he was there before he even spoke, caught that scent of woodsmoke and last year’s leaves. He rested his hands upon my shoulders as if we’d known each other a hundred years. I held my breath. His fingers were so cold.

“The sky,” he whispered, and I closed my eyes at the sound of his voice. “Doesn’t it look as if it would break if you threw a stone high enough?”

I turned to face him, knowing what would happen even before it did. He was so beautiful, with that black hair, those shining eyes. I was married; I had a child.

I still didn’t stop.

When he kissed me, his lips weren’t cold; they were warm and so were his arms around my waist.

“Don’t let me go,” I whispered.

He laughed, a silvery, airy sound. “Have no fear. I will not.”

And I felt the first cold touch of fear—

25

I sat in the driver’s seat with the key in the ignition.

That thing. That creature. He was just like the girl I’d found in the yard with Connie. I could see it all now, what had frightened me so much about her.

She’d not been human.

You could tell straight away they were different. Not like us. Not the same species. OK, so they’d both been very tall, but so were lots of people. Basketball players. The Dutch. Those guys in Africa who live on blood and milk. No, it was the eyes that gave it away: those glittering and somehow metallic eyes. In a way, it was a relief to finally admit it to myself. I’d seen two creatures who looked human, might even pass for human – just. But they weren’t human: they were something else.

I couldn’t get my head round it.

I felt like the whole world around me had undergone this subtle change and taken on a new character, like I’d just noticed for the first time that the sky was actually green. We weren’t at the top, us humans. There was
something else
.

It shouldn’t be true. It was. I’d seen them. Two. With my own eyes. Him and that white-haired girl. The first time, I’d talked myself out of it. Now there was no way of escaping the reality.

“Joe. Are you going to do this or not?” Rafe said. “We’ve got to get out of here. It’s not safe.”

I didn’t need telling.

That
thing
. He was the one who had taken Lissy, leaving nothing but a pile of dead leaves on her bed, not the faceless people who’d driven off in their fancy grey car.

There were these wild inhuman creatures. And the others, those men searching the house. They were different.
They are the investigation
, Rafe had said. I couldn’t take it all in; I was starting to panic.

One step at a time
, I told myself.

I turned the ignition and the car leapt forwards, a huge, shuddering jolt across the yard. I slammed my foot on what I hoped was the brake; Rafe grabbed the handbrake.

“It’s in gear,” he said through gritted teeth. “Always start a car with your foot on the clutch. The pedal on the left.”

Right, thanks for telling me
.

I jammed my foot on the clutch and turned the key in the ignition a second time. The car started, engine humming. I tried to forget where I was and what had just happened.

He wasn’t human
—

I tried to pretend that Dad was sitting in the passenger seat, letting me drive his old Ford around the field at Grandad’s.

Release the clutch as you press down on the accelerator, easy now—

I was driving the car, in charge of this huge lump of metal. It was like someone had just handed me a detonated bomb.

“Left out of here,” barked Rafe, gasping as he leaned forwards, clutching his leg just below the knee.

Just don’t pass out, Rafe
.

The hawthorn hedge scraped the window on my side with a shriek against the glass.

“For Christ’s sake!” Rafe hissed.

“Just shut up and tell me where to go!”

“OK, OK, OK.” Rafe craned his neck, looking back along the lane. “We’ve got to find out more about those people who were inside the house, all right? There’s nothing in Hopesay Edge. We need to get into town, find an Internet café or a library or something. You’re good this side. Pull out and stay close to the left. It’s pretty narrow.”

I inched out into the road.
Find out more about those people who were inside the house?
He had his priorities all wrong but I wasn’t about to argue. What about that other thing? The creature.

“Get on with it – you’ve got to be decisive!” Rafe snapped.

I turned the steering wheel and the car went left. I was driving. Driving a car along a country road. A Landrover shot past, flashing its headlights.

“Speed up. You’re going to draw attention to yourself driving at twenty. You should be doing fifty here at least.”

I settled on thirty miles an hour, glancing down at the speedometer. What would happen if I got caught? Was it possible to lose your driving licence before you were even old enough to have one? Or would I just be sent to some young offenders’ institution to learn about drugs and burglary?

We slunk along soaking wet country roads, hedgerows flashing past the windows. The sky overhead was filthy grey and hurling down rain.

“You’re really not doing too badly.”

He didn’t have to sound so surprised.

“Look. Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or not? What was that thing in the garden? Why are you being followed?”

“He was one of the Hidden. Any more than that, I only know that this isn’t the first time they’ve taken Lissy.”

“What do you mean?” I stared at the road ahead, concentrating hard on not veering into the hedge again. “What are the Hidden?”

“Our parents didn’t ever want Lissy to know,” Rafe said, slowly, “but she was taken away. For three weeks. It’s one of the first things I can properly remember. I was the first to see – her empty bed. She’d just gone. It was in all the newspapers. Mum and Dad were suspects.”

Was he making this up? All I had to do was go online and type in Lissy’s name. If there’d ever been a big newspaper story about her I’d find it.

“I was there,” Rafe went on, “when
he
brought her home. That creature we just saw walk into the lake. I was in the kitchen with Mum, really early one morning. We saw him out of the window. He was coming through the garden holding this bundle. Mum just ran outside with no shoes on. It was Lissy. He brought her home, then
went
. He just kind of melted away into the garden.”

“So Lissy disappeared – and came back?” I could hear the disbelief in my own voice, slowing down to take a corner.

“Believe me or not,” Rafe said, like he’d read my mind. “It’s your choice. I can’t exactly blame you if you don’t.”

But if Lissy had gone missing as a baby, that explained a lot, didn’t it? Miriam was so paranoid.

“Why hasn’t Lissy ever found out about it? All she’d have to do—”

“She’s vain enough to look herself up online if that’s what you’re wondering. But there’s nothing there. Not a single newspaper story or mention of her name. It’s all gone.” Rafe shook his head. “Don’t think I haven’t tried to—” He paused. “I’ve got older and he hasn’t.” A blank, furious look crossed his face. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

I hadn’t told Dad and Miriam about the girl-creature I’d seen with Connie. And now Lissy was gone.

I saw Rafe check all the mirrors. Again. Like he was expecting to see someone behind us, even though the road was clear the whole way. We followed signs for the town centre, passing an old-fashioned petrol station with pumps that looked as if they’d been there since World War II. A couple of fat old men sat on plastic chairs outside under a battered awning, one eating a sandwich, another reading the paper.

“OK, listen,” Rafe said as I stopped at the traffic lights. “There’s only one place I’ve
ever
read anything about – about all this, which even comes close to the truth. I spent years looking for stuff on the Internet and in stupid new-age books, trying to find out what had really happened to Lissy, why she was taken and who did it, and eventually I went on the British Library website. I found a record about this weird old journal.” He paused, glancing at me. Maybe to see if I was laughing. I mean, it all sounded so ridiculous and unreal. “It was called
Investigations into a Hidden Race
or something. I stole it.”

A Hidden Race
. OK. He’d said what we both now knew:
there are things living here on earth who can steal a girl from a locked room, leaving nothing but dead leaves on her bed
. Race wasn’t even the right word. No human can turn a girl into leaves.

I glanced at the traffic light. Still red.

“You
stole
it? From the British Library? No wonder these people are following us. That’s a crime, Rafe. They’re probably the police.” I spoke slowly and carefully, as if to a very stupid person or a child. “All this is your fault.”

“It might be my fault but I didn’t exactly have much choice.” I thought he was going to hit me like he’d clouted Lissy in the church. “Listen – I’ve spent fourteen years trying to find out what happened to my family, why Lissy was taken, and no one will ever tell me the truth. Mum’s the worst.
Listen, darling, all that was so long ago. Let’s not dwell on the past. Lissy was abducted by someone with a terrible mental disturbance. All that matters is she came home
.” It was a nasty but accurate imitation of Miriam.

He lowered his voice. “That journal. I’m sure it’s some kind of trap – like there’s an alert whenever someone asks to read it. Those people who followed me from London and then searched the Reach for us this morning are the response. They were literally on my back in less than an hour after I left the British Library, and I don’t think they’re the police.” He shook his head, looking confused. “I was sure I’d lost them last night.”

“Why’d they wait till this morning to break in, then, if they followed you all the way here last night?”

“How the hell should I know?” Rafe snapped. “None of it’s exactly making much sense to me either.”

“Another species,” I said, gabbling really, thinking of that tall creature, just walking into the lake, disappearing beneath the water, leaving nothing but ripples.
He never gets any older
, Rafe had said.
He’s always the same
. Was “he” or “she” even the right word? Did that distinction apply? “An immortal species. There can’t be many of them. There’s no way they could stay hidden. You can see they’re not human.”

“There’s a café,” Rafe said suddenly. “Pull in at the lay-by.”

I waited for an old woman to lurch across the road with a tartan shopping trolley, heading for a shop with a load of rakes and plastic dustbins outside, then drew the car up close to the pavement outside an arty looking little place, tucked between a charity shop and an old-fashioned grocery with boxes of carrots and stuff on display right in the street, where anyone could nick them. There was a blackboard leaning up against the wall. Someone had scrawled “Free wi-fi” in pink chalk next to a price list.

“What are you going to do? Google ‘fairies’?” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. What was he, really? That boy? Not human. Something else.

Rafe opened the passenger door, hauling himself out. “Just shut up and pass me the broom.”

I’d seen enough of Rafe to know he was half mad, unscrupulous, and potentially violent. I wasn’t about to argue with him. I just obeyed, like he was some kind of army general.

I helped Rafe hobble into the café and found seats near the back. I still had change from my last motorway stop with Dad the night before. It felt like a thousand years had passed since then. I got us each a coffee from a bored girl behind a bar that was completely papered with comic book pages. The clear plastic laminate was pockmarked with old yellow cigarette burns. Either this place had been here since the days when people could still smoke indoors, or no one cared about the law. I got the feeling that this far out in the sticks anything might happen and the normal authorities would never know.