Misty Falls (31 page)

No, please. You need backup.
I don’t think you can stop him.
I only wanted Alex here if he had a team with him.

Delay—keep him talking—spin it out.

What do you think I’ve been doing ever since he took me?
I sounded a bit hysterical even to myself.

Sorry. You’re doing really well. You’ve been so brave.

Johan turned at the steps up to the cabin, noting that I had fallen behind. I let him see my limp and continued slowly towards him. About five more paces and I’d be out of contact again.

If you can’t stop him, please know I don’t blame you.

I will stop him. I’ve been given this gift of persuasion for a reason—for you.
I could hear the steely determination beneath the words.

I was out of time.
You never needed it to persuade me to love you.

I could feel his pleasure at my words tingle down our line of communication.

I love you too. That’s the truth.

The next limp closer to Johan cut him off.

‘Hurry up, Misty, our hostess is waiting. You’ll be able to chat to Alex later—yes, of course I know what you’re doing. Roger, help Misty up the steps.’

Reluctantly Roger steadied me as I ascended the stairs. ‘Johan, is it necessary to keep her hands bound?’

‘Necessary? Maybe, maybe not. But I am learning not to take Misty for granted, Roger; I suggest you do the same. There is more to her than meets the eye.’

Roger let go of my elbow. Johan shark-smiled and pushed open the door.

‘Hi, honey, we’re home!’ he trilled, towing Jason over the threshold. Their feet left muddy tracks on the wooden floor as Johan ignored the mat and boot room. The hallway smelt of roast turkey, transporting me back to my own parents’ house and our family Christmases. I felt horribly homesick, just wanting my mum to hug me, my dad to stand between me and this man.

There was a scream from the kitchen and the sound of a plate smashing. Miriam had spotted their unexpected guest.

‘Hello, Miriam, you look beautiful as ever.’ Johan sounded gleeful.

I followed the voices into the kitchen. Miriam was standing by the sink in the last stages of preparing the meal. The turkey was already out, sitting on the wooden table, crisp caramel skin. Three places had been laid. Green beans sat in a casserole dish next to creamed potatoes. Two plates remained in her hands, one lay in shards on the floor. A tall woman with a little weight on her hips, Miriam had the air of a competent cook, apron snugly tied, surfaces neat and cleaned between stages. Her long dark hair was caught back in a ponytail; her wide eyes were hazel like her younger son’s.

Johan took command.

‘Hmm-hmm—that smells good. Please do sit down and I’ll carve. Jason, get another three plates out please; I’m sure you know where they are kept.’

Miriam collapsed onto the nearest chair. ‘Roger?’ she said weakly.

Roger rubbed his face. ‘Let’s just … just do what he says.’

‘Dear brother, if you don’t mind.’ Johan held up a plastic tie. ‘Hands behind your back.’

Roger hesitated.

‘Either that or I repeat my touch on Jason with no guarantee I’ll bring him back.’

Roger put his wrists together. Johan secured him, pulling the binding tighter than needed.

‘Miriam? If you would be so kind.’

Glancing once at her husband, Miriam let him bind her wrists. She couldn’t stop her shudder when he brushed an affectionate hand across her neck.

‘Don’t touch my mom!’ said Jason, thumping three more plates on the table.

‘And last but not least, our brave Jason.’ Johan jiggled the tie tauntingly.

‘P … pa?’

‘Just do what he says,’ Roger whispered. He sounded defeated. ‘He’s got something he wants us to hear so let’s give him his chance. Then you let us go, right, Johan?’

‘I suppose you could see it like that,’ mused Johan, tying Jason so his hands were in front of him like mine. He prodded him to take the third seat then brought a chair over for me. Once we were all seated, he took his place at the head of the table. ‘For what we are about to receive … ’

‘Don’t you dare blaspheme!’ hissed Roger, looking as if he was going to head-butt him from his position at Johan’s left.

Johan quirked a brow. ‘I suppose it is a little much from me. I never had much time for fathers, heavenly or earthly, did I?’ He stuck the carving fork deep in the breast. Clear juices ran out. ‘Done to a turn, Miriam. Perfect.’ He smiled at the unappreciative cook sitting on his right. Johan carved a slice, white gash against orange-gold skin. With sickening care, he served us all, piling our plates with food none of us could eat. ‘I hope you didn’t use any of that pre-prepared stuff Americans are so fond of?’ He took a wary mouthful of potato. ‘No, made from scratch. I applaud you, Miriam.’

The woman’s eyes were skittering from her son, to husband, briefly to me, then back to Johan. ‘Why are you here, Johan?’

‘Excellent question.’ Johan poured himself a glass of wine. ‘First, to enjoy this very fine meal in the bosom of my family. Second, to set a few things straight.’

‘What things?’

‘I do love family celebrations. Misty here comes from a large and loving family—no abandoned sons in your family, are there, Misty?’

‘No,’ I whispered, as he appeared to want a reply.

‘And that despite the fact her father is no savant and not that keen on us or our way of life. See, there were other choices.’

‘If you want us to apologize—’ began Miriam.

Johan rapped the end of his fork on the table. ‘Stop! Too late for that. No, Alex is mine now. Don’t worry about his future. I’ll make it up to him. In fact, it’s about the past that I am here, not the future. Isn’t that right, my dear?’ He looked straight at Miriam.

‘Miriam, what’s he saying?’ Roger’s gaze swung between hated brother and much-loved wife.

‘Remind me, when is your birthday, Miriam?’ Johan asked.

‘April twelfth.’ Miriam was staring at her plate, finding the cranberry relish riveting.

‘And how old are you exactly?’

She opened her mouth but the words failed.

‘I should explain at this point that little Misty here has a very useful gift. She cannot lie and, if she’s not controlling her power, those around her can’t lie either. Now, as I’ve made her life fairly unpleasant recently, my guess is that she has no control over what her power is doing at the moment. Is that the case, Misty?’

I hadn’t even thought about controlling my gift. It would be rippling out as far and wide as it ever had. I nodded.

‘So that means we all will be brutally honest with each other. I already know that Roger hates me so I’m not interested in what he has to say, but you, Miriam, I think there are some home truths that you’ve never told him, aren’t there? Things you’ve kept hidden.’ He folded turkey and beans on the end of his fork, compacting them savagely. ‘Returning to my question, when were you born?’

‘April twelfth,’ she repeated.

‘Yes, yes, we all heard that. I’m asking how old you are. Roger here thinks you are forty-six, the same as him, when you and I both know you’ve been lying.’

‘I’m forty-eight.’ Her voice was a thread of sound, stretched like a spider’s web.

‘The same age as me. In fact, we were born within a week of each other, weren’t we?’

Miriam nodded.

‘How do you know this?’ asked Roger, his expression bewildered. ‘Miriam, honey, I don’t care you’re older than me. Is that why you didn’t say: you were embarrassed?’

Knowing I was unwillingly aiding Johan’s cause, I tried to rein in my truth-zone, remembering what Zed had told me. There was so much emotion in the room, secrets and lies, that it was impossible, like trying to pitch a tent in a storm-force gale.

‘Now we’ve got this far, I think you should finish, don’t you, Miriam?’ Johan sounded disgustingly pleased, a schoolboy ripping the legs off an insect to see it stagger.

She shook her head.

‘Then I’ll do it for you. Roger, meet my soulfinder. Your savant wife was destined from the moment of our conception to be mine. We met when we were in our twenties but she turned away from me and chose you instead. There: now you know the truth about the woman you married, despite my pleas not to do so. She has been able to hide it from you as that is what she does best.’

He chewed his forkful with taunting pleasure.

‘I turned away from a monster! I hated you from the moment I knew what you were!’ spat Miriam, her control fracturing. ‘You were already a murderer and your brother would’ve been next to die if I hadn’t saved him!’

Johan smiled amicably. ‘Ah, so you worked that out, did you? Yes, I did kill our parents. Father gave me one beating too many and mother never raised a hand to stop him. The world did not miss them. I think Roger suspected what I had done but couldn’t prove it.’

Roger was swaying between gut punches of truth. His wife a savant, a soulfinder to his own brother; confession that his parents were murdered. ‘Is this true, Miriam?’

Her face creased, new lines ribboning across her forehead in her distress. ‘I thought I would love him but by the time I found him your father had twisted him into … into this.’ She flicked horror-filled eyes at Johan. ‘I knew then my task had to be to save you from my broken soulfinder.’

‘You’re one of them?’ Roger’s gaze swept to me and Johan. I didn’t very much like being put in the same category.

Miriam shook her head. ‘I’m nothing like him. I’m your wife. Every choice was made to protect you, and to protect Jason and … and Alex.’

‘Even Alex?’ Johan raised a finger to rub the bulb of his wine glass. ‘Oh do tell. How does abandoning him equal protection? I’m all ears.’

Miriam swallowed. ‘Roger hated savants. I understood—I did; your father had made sure of that. I was afraid Roger would become like him if Alex stayed with us and he would create a second monster in his son.’ She sobbed. ‘Oh God forgive me but I couldn’t stand between Alex and Roger all the time and keep you away as well—my gift does not stretch that far. I’m just not that strong.’

‘Your gift. Mom, what gift?’ asked Jason.

She pressed her lips together, unwilling to admit this last proof of her savant identity.

Johan stepped in. ‘Miriam hides things, Jason. Very effectively, I might add. It took me years to track you down after you fled South Africa.’

‘I knew when I saw you standing over Alex’s cradle that we had to go—had to make you believe we’d taken him with us. And it worked. It worked.’ She repeated it to herself, as if reminding her heart that the sacrifice had been worth it. ‘It took years to organize but I managed to hide him for a long time—out of your clutches. You never even suspected that I would leave him behind, did you?’

‘True. I looked for you, not Alex on his own. You loved the boy too much for me to suspect you’d abandon him.’

‘It was the most difficult thing I have ever, ever done.’ Miriam’s eyes were fierce. ‘I just hope you’ll be too late to warp him. How did you find us?’

Johan sipped his wine. ‘Through no fault of yours, Miriam. I’m afraid you were defeated by pure chance. A business acquaintance remarked on the similarity between me and a man he’d met on a plane, a South African involved in the seed trade. That conversation gave me a direction and then the rest was simple.’

Roger was still caught in the earlier revelation. ‘You lied to me—all these years?’ He stared at Miriam as if she had become a stranger.

‘Yes. I had to.’

‘Mom?’ Jason’s voice trembled.

Miriam turned to her son, chin quivering as she held back her tears. ‘It doesn’t change anything, darling. Not all savants are as your father has taught you; some of us care and use our gifts for good.’

‘I can at least absolve you of stealing my soulfinder, Roger,’ Johan said calmly, sketching a mocking cross in the air. ‘The blame for that rests on Miriam’s shoulders alone as she hid that truth most closely of all her secrets. I was only angry for about a decade. Recently I’ve come to see that a soulfinder is a burden that I am happier without. Alex will come to know that too. I’ll explain when he arrives.’

‘No, please, don’t involve him!’ My protest was out before I could stop myself.

Johan winked at me—conspiratorially, jokily. ‘He’s in this right up to his neck, my dear, so of course he should be here.’

Roger breathed heavily, trying to master his temper. ‘Look, I know we’ve had our differences over the years, but I’ve never harmed you, Johan.’

‘Ha-ha-ha!’ Johan’s laugh rang cruel—jagged. ‘Oh, I beg to differ, Roger. You harmed me by taking all our parents’ love. I think our mother might have been a savant, a minor one, or maybe she never understood her gift; whatever her true nature, she had it beaten out of her by our father and became a shadow—a nothing. You made no protest when he turned his fists on me, called me the devil’s own child. Instead, you echoed him, added your own kicks with his blessing—or have you forgotten?’

‘I was young—I was only copying what I thought was right.’

‘And he taught you too well. You, Roger, do not deserve to live any more than that evil man deserved to draw another breath. I killed Mother first with no fuss, but him I made suffer. I explained in great detail my plans for our family, how I would eliminate the haters and rear the gifted children to know their superiority and take pride in it. You too will know what that feels like by the end of the day.’