Shadow Breakers (18 page)

THE MOON SHINES
intermittently from behind rushing, tattered clouds.

I'm in a playground at night. It smells of decay. Swings creak in the cold wind, and laughter, ghost-children's laughter, echoes across the cracked, weed-infested tarmac. The slides are rusting. It is like Craghollow Park — a dreamlike version of it. But is this a dream, or is it real?

Above me, dark specks swirl in a blue-black sky. They could be birds or bats, or ash from a bonfire. Digital clock figures appear in the sky, as if written by lasers.

23:55:17

The carousel creaks, turning, even though there is nobody on it.

No — she is on it. With her back to me, a hunched shadow. She turns, turns, the hooded face coming into view. She looks up at me, and I see her face in the moonlight.

She has the face of a hag.

Her skin is not glowing and porcelain white any longer — it is yellow, dusty, like the old paper of the Constantinople Rubric. Her nose is hooked and deep lines are scored across her face, cutting through flesh misshapen by boils and pustules. Her spotted brown hands are clawlike, with brittle nails and bulbous veins. Her teeth are like splinters of yellow bone. Her body shakes as if she finds it a great effort to stay sitting.

“You saw this several times,” she says with a harsh, rattling whisper. “The form I have been reduced to.”

I back slowly away. “Where are we? What is this place?”

“Our bodies are still where they were. But now, we are battling for your mind.” A horrible smile creeps across her face. “The link — that's all I need now.”

“No. I won't let you.”

“But I am already too
strong
inside you, Miranda May. You are so special. It will take very little force of will now, for me to become you.” She gets slowly to her feet.

23:56:10

“I'm not afraid of you,” I say. A cold wind whips leaves across the path.

It is as if I haven't spoken.

“I have occupied your body,” she hisses, “and now I will occupy your mind. Take my hand.”

She moves toward me, holding out one claw, and I'm running, stumbling across the playground, through the cold wind and the flurries of leaves. Beneath the swirling ash, or bats, or birds. Beneath the dark, rushing clouds.

On a rope bridge, a familiar figure stands, dark coat blowing in the wind, hair tumbling across his eyes, hands firm on the ropes. Josh looks like an admiral at the stern of his ship.

“Don't let her win, Miranda!” he shouts. “Fight her! Break her, for us!”

I run to the swings, and she is there, swinging backward . . . and forward . . . Backward . . . and forward . . . Just like me. I stop, back slowly away.

Lyssa emerges from the shadows behind the swings, holding her oscilloscope. The lines are going crazy, casting green flickers across the ghostly playground.

“You're one of us now, Miranda. Stay with us!”

Ollie is beside her. “You've got to be strong!” he says firmly. “I lost Bex. I don't want you going, too.”

And on top of the monkey bars is Cal, her hair fire-bright in the moonlight. “Never give an enemy a reason to rejoice, Miranda. We're all on your side. Concentrate. Concentrate hard!”

I fall to my knees.

The Animus is there in front of me. I scramble to the slide, manage to get up the steps, as if the height gives me some illusion of escape. But it just makes me feel more isolated, and now I am at the top of the slide, cold, shaking, waiting to come down, just as I used to when I was a little girl.

It's waiting for me at the bottom. One gnarled, papery hand outstretched.

I can feel it pulling on my mind, willing me to let go of the bar, to slide down into its embrace.

“You need something that's your own.”

It's Josh's voice, soft and urgent. He's beside me on the platform.

“What?” I say desperately.

“We can't help you now. You need to find something the Animus can't possess. A thought, a memory, an emotion. Something that will weaken its hold on your mind and banish it as the energy process begins.”

We both look up at the sky.

23:57:10

I don't have long.

Something the Animus cannot own. A thought that is pure. Something that's mine alone.

23:57:44

Her eyes are furnace-bright, the claw reaching out.

It's no good. The wind is icy now, as if the sea itself is blowing across from the bay into the playground. I can feel myself slipping. The temptation to give in is so strong.

23:58:01

I think of all the people who have come and gone, lived and died here. The sailors and smugglers, the witches and the Plague victims. I think of how little time we have in life, of how short our existence actually is and how much we need to do to make it worthwhile. For there is nothing beyond. I am
certain
of that. I know this little life is all I have.

And you know what? There's no way I'm going to lose it.

23:58:29

“I'm sorry,” I whisper, my eyes closed. “I'm so sorry for you. But I'm not going to let you take me as well.”

“Miranda.” It's Josh's voice, again, more urgent, on the edge of my consciousness. “The energy spike.”

And then I realize that there is one thing. There is something she can never have. Something that can only ever be mine.

I only need to think of him, and he appears.

23:59:21

I remember that day one year ago.

I'm standing by the grave, my eyes burning with tears. It's stupidly sunny, the shadows too crisp and the birds too loud. The undertakers in their long coats moving as if in slow motion, the great, shiny black cars stealing along the flat gray road. My hand opens as I drop the sandy earth from the little box onto his wooden coffin and the soil obscures his name on the plaque. Knowing that this is the last time I'll see the place where his body lies. Turning away, not sure if I should brush the earth from my hands, looking at the people in their dark suits framed against the hard blue sky . . .

But no. Don't think of that.

Think of him alive.

Further back still, in my special and sacred memory.

I am two years old and it is the first time I have gone down the slide on my own. It seems like a huge, terrifying slope of metal, a great run into the unknown.

23:59:44

“Come on, Panda, my love,” his voice says softly. “Let go. Let go, and I'll catch you if you fall.”

23:59:52

I look down, and there he is. I see the creases of his smile and the twinkle in his eyes and his outstretched arms at the foot of the slide.

“Dad,” I say softly, my eyes stinging with tears. “Dad.”

I can sense the Animus, her anger burning into my mind and my soul and my being, and I think,
No
.

You cannot have this. You cannot be me.

I do have something left to live for.

23:59:56

I let go of the bar above the slide.

And I fall, into blackness.

23:59:59

TOTAL DARKNESS.

No. Eight points of light.

Glowing, growing, rushing toward me. Reality tuning itself back in. Strength returning to my body.

I hit the world again with a jolt, like someone being pulled out of a dark tunnel into sunlight.

I gasp great lungfuls of air. It's like waking up the morning after being ill and drinking beautiful, cold water.

And she is screaming as the power is turned back on her, on her own life.

Her focus has gone. I have rejected her. Repelled her.

The pillar in the center of the room glows cherry red, then orange, and all the computer screens begin to show endless strings of numbers and letters, before exploding in a blaze of sparks. Just like in the school. There is a strong smell of smoke and sulfur. One by one, the glass globes pop, too, shattering like lightbulbs. I scream, terrified, covering my face. Alarms sound, and sprinklers come on. Water pounds the floor like a hundred power showers, frothing on every surface, soaking me.

The Animus kicks and thrashes as the haze of energy breaks her hold,
drags
her essence away, pulling her out of bodily existence. With a final shriek, she snaps out of view as if she had never existed. All that is left of her is a small pile of ash.

I am curled up on the floor, gasping, bedraggled, hands in front of my eyes. The beckoning figure of my father's spirit is imprinted on my retina.

The red digital clock is counting on from midnight now. Onward, out of the darkness and into the light.

Smoke drifts through the room like sea fog.

I see Josh step forward and scoop up the pile of ash into one of those little yellow cylinders I first saw him use at the children's home. He screws the top on the cylinder, puts it into his pocket, and nods to Miss Bellini.

Then my mother runs forward and hugs me, and I sob angrily for a minute or two.

We just stand there for a bit. We don't have to move or say anything. And then, slowly, we look at one another and nod in understanding.

“You all right to entertain yourself?” asks my mum. She has Truffle over her shoulder, his diaper reeking.

I hold my nose and nod, trying to eat my cereal with some dignity while ignoring my smelly little brother.

“Kerry's coming to look after Thomas. I've got some visits to do.”

So it's Kerry, now? I wonder, briefly, what happened to Tash. Oh, well. These “helpers” come and go all the time.

“Fine,” I say, with my nostrils still pinched.

“Honestly, Miranda. You were little once.”

I decide not to answer that, but go on eating my cereal and watching Mundane TV as it flickers in the corner of the room. What's this one called?
Snog, Marry, Avoid My Toddler's Fat Ugly Dog
, or something? I can't wait to get out of here and back to my friends.

My mother's hand is gentle but firm on my shoulder.

“You were incredibly brave,” she says. “More than any of the others would have been.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“I didn't really know what I was doing.”

“We can go to the doctor,” she says. “If you like.”

I shake my head. “Really. I don't need to.”

She nods, as if accepting this. “Have you got homework?” she asks.

“Math. I've done it.”

“Really?” She narrows her eyes. “Are you sure?”

I open my eyes wide, spoon halfway to my mouth. “Look in my bag if you don't believe me! Fifteen equations, all finished. Did them last night.”

Okay, so Josh helped me to get them done more quickly with the aid of a cheat website. But they're done. And I don't need math to be a Shadow Breaker. As we are now officially called, according to Miss Bellini.

“All right,” says my mother. “Just asking.”

It's good I don't have to lie, because I think she'd probably know. It's easy on the phone, but not face-to-face.

“Still all right for bowling next weekend, then?” she says.

Bowling? Next weekend? I rack my brains, trying to remember if this is something I'm supposed to know about. I take a big gulp of tea to hide my confusion.

“Sure,” I say. “Next weekend . . . yeah, 'course.”

“It's all okay,” she says softly. “Really, it is.” She squats down, so her eyes are level with mine, and gives me her warmest smile. “And now you don't have to lie to me anymore about where you are.”

I nod, smile. “Mum?”

“Yes, my darling?”

“How long . . . how long had you known?”

“About the others?” she says. “Or the Animus?”

“Both.”

She lowers her eyes for a second. “I knew there was a kind of darkness around you,” she says. “It's my job to notice these things. But I didn't know what it was. Or how or when it would strike . . . and I was so worried about you. I felt so guilty.”

“And Miss Bellini and the others?”

“I've known almost since you first got in with them.” She smiles. “All those clubs you were supposedly going to. Not terribly convincing. What story do the others spin for their parents, I wonder?”

I've never thought about that. “I don't know.”

“Anyway, I was torn, knowing you were putting yourself in danger, but at the same time . . . I knew that if anyone could help you overcome what was destroying you, it was Miss Bellini and her team. I had to let it happen. There are links at the highest level between Miss Bellini's contacts and the . . . well, let's say certain authorities I know. They have . . . networks.”

This ought to surprise me, but for some reason it doesn't. “And you didn't say anything?” I ask.

“I didn't want to jeopardize it. It could have put you in more danger. And that's the way it'll stay. If you tell Miss Bellini you want to carry on, I won't interfere, I won't breathe down your neck. But you'll know I'm here if anything . . . disturbs you again.”

I nod again. “Thanks, Mum.”

“You know,” she says, “I don't show it, but . . . I worry about you so much. I mean, it's enough that you're growing up and settling into a new place . . . But all this, too. I need you to be safe.”

“I will be,” I promise.

She touches my cheek again. “You're so important, Miranda,” says my mother. “So important in so many ways.”

I know she has said this to me before, not long ago. It seems like years, though. Her words seem to echo through time. But they are good words, and they reassure me.

• • •

It's all over, and the dust has settled.

Yesterday afternoon, Josh and I went out to the power station, but couldn't even get close. The place was sealed off — tape, mesh fences, armed guards in yellow vests with big, hungry-looking dogs, plastic sheeting over the shattered windows, the works.

We could see guys in camouflage gear and visored helmets going in and out of the building, carrying crates into army vans. They didn't even notice us as we stood and watched.

Couple of kids. We're kind of invisible, you see. Running in the shadows.

“Not our problem now,” Miss Bellini said to us in the Physics lab at school. “The guys with the big boots come in and clean up. It's what they do best. And for the moment, our electrical supply carries on just the way it has been.”

I wonder about the papers, and the TV news, and the unofficial media like bloggers and so on. But nothing seems to have got out. That's the way the adult world works. Miss Bellini says that people like to be skeptical, but ultimately believe what they're told, and even those that won't at first usually do once they're given money.

• • •

Some nights, I lie awake thinking about the Shape. The Animus. Katherine Brampton the witch girl.

I think about the moment her shadow was broken, when the energy she should have absorbed to become me consumed her instead. I stopped her, kept her shadow at bay. I found the one thing that was mine and mine alone, that precious memory. And I clung onto it like a drowning girl clinging to driftwood as the storm raged around me.

Now, in my room, I'm thinking about the school photos we saw on the screen in the Seaview Hotel with the same face in all of them. She'd been clever. She used the Image-Ination software to morph the original girls into Jade, to throw us off the scent — just long enough for it all to work out her way. I should have realized when Ollie mentioned there was a bug in Image-Ination. Poor Jade. Just an ordinary girl caught up in it all, and she didn't even know. Good thing she took off to her grandma's when she did. Just lucky.

One thing bothers me still. One thing doesn't fit.

I heard the horses in some of my dreams, and then the Animus told us about them.

Armored horsemen. Dark-skinned. Carrying flaming torches.
They burned the forest to get rid of the Plague. To scorch the Black Death from the land. Maybe. But who were they?

I know I'm not going to find out just yet. Something tells me I have seen a fragment of something more, a window to something deeper and darker, beyond this place and this time. More shadows searching for hosts, more shadows to break.

I'll need my new friends by my side.

I spot Jade from the other side of the road, before I go in. She's sitting at the window table of the café, a Diet Coke in front of her. She's gazing out toward the sea, her nose ring glinting in the morning light. She hasn't clocked me yet.

This is the very place, I realize, where that truck almost hit me. A shiver runs through me. I cross the road carefully, just like they teach you. Looking both ways and listening all the time.

Yep, Cross at the Green. Good girl. Say what you like about me, but I don't make the same mistakes twice.

The doorbell jangles as I enter the café, and she smiles as she looks up and sees me. I go over to her and give her a big hug.

“So how have you been?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Oh, y'know. Not bad.”

We sit down. “You ran away,” I say quietly. “You didn't tell anyone where you were.”

Jade grins. “I was only at my grandmother's. I'd hardly call that running away.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “As running away goes, it's on the poor side. Halfhearted, even. You're sticking around, then?”

“Yeah. I'm sticking around,” she says. “I decided being bored here was better than being bored there.”

“Copper Beeches taking you back?”

“For now,” she says. “Old trout Armitage weren't too happy with me, but then, is she ever?”

“She doesn't seem easily pleased.”

“Nah. So what 'bout you? What's been going on? Someone told me you was in a fire or something?” She narrows her eyes at me and takes a sip of her soda without looking away.

“No . . . not really. Well . . . I helped to . . . prevent an accident.” I'm trying not to lie directly to Jade, without telling her stuff that would compromise me. “Look, it's difficult.”

“Something to do with the Weirdos?” Jade holds her hands up. “It's okay. You don't need to tell me. I don't wanna know. Just as long as you've sometimes got time for your normal mates, I ain't bothered. All right?”

“All right,” I say. “That's a deal, Jade.”

“Want to come round tonight?” she says. “Some of the Beeches guys are ordering pizza, watching a DVD. We can all invite a friend.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jade. That'd be good.”

I smile at the friend I almost didn't trust. The friend I was ready to think the worst of. I nearly gave her up. What kind of person does that make me?

I'm going to have to think about that one.

“Okay,” I say. “This will need a bit of thought.”

Josh sighs, folds his arms. “Take your time, Miranda. We're not going anywhere in the next few hours, after all.”

I lean across the pool table, trying to peer right down the cue like Josh does, imagining the power I can get behind it.

“I mean,” Josh goes on, “it's not like we've got anything better to do.”

“Take it steady, Miranda,” says Lyssa, watching from the side.

Cal is perched on a high stool, reading a book, but keeping an eye on the game. “The trick,” she says, without looking up from her book, “is not to look too hard at the ball, or you end up hitting it off-center.”

She's right. You look down the cue, and you look at the pocket, where it's going. Look at the ball and you don't angle it right. I tease the white ball with the cue, enjoying the smoothness of the wood across the bridge of my hand.

And then I bring it back, and fire the shot.

I've hit the white dead-on. I watch, not daring to breathe.

It powers across the table, bounces off the far cushion, comes back, still under a good momentum, and clicks with the red ball I was aiming at — sending it rolling, rolling right to the edge of the pocket . . . teetering . . .

And it's in.

“Oh, yessss!”
I punch the air. I spin around on my heel, pointing at Josh with my cue. “Bring it
on
, Pool Boy.”

Cal snickers. Lyssa claps.

Josh looks annoyed, and doesn't meet my gaze. “Calm down, Miranda,” he says. “It's just one shot.”

“He's not a gracious loser, is he?” I say to the girls.

“Never,” Lyssa says. “Although there is still a fifty-seven percent chance that he will win.” I look at her, surprised. “Based on previous games,” she says.

Well, okay. I have to bow to Lyssa's math. I shake my head and laugh, looking cautiously at Cal.

She smiles at me. I'm glad.

“Game's still on,” says Josh caustically, as I'm stalking around the table and eyeing up my next shot. “There'll only be one loser here when we're done.”

“Yep,” I say, “and it'll be you.”

From behind us, Miss Bellini coughs discreetly. “I hate to cut in at such an important moment,” she says. “Miranda? Could I borrow you?” She beckons with one finger.

I slump into the leather swivel chair and put my feet up on the desk, folding my hands together. I smile at Miss Bellini.

“Quite comfy,” I say. “You never know. In twenty-five years' time, Miss Bellini, I could be you.”

She turns, peers at me over her glasses.

“I don't agree, Miranda,” she says.

“No?” I can't hide the disappointment in my voice.

“No. I'd say fifteen years.”

I grin. But she sounds very serious when she says it. Like she knows something I don't. Well, let's face it, Miss Bellini always knows stuff we don't.

Looking at the desk, I notice she has the three metallic hemispherical cups laid out again.

Noticing me looking at them, she gestures. “Remember? I think you may be able to do it now.”

I remember when she performed the trick for me. Seems like ages ago. I swing my feet down, stare at the cups for a bit, and then start to move them about.