The Key to Starveldt (4 page)

Evan made a face. ‘Does that mean I have to put my pants on?’

‘
Please
!’

D
ecision made, they all stood: a silent consensus. While Jess and Electra headed upstairs, Evan, Harper and Manx drifted towards the laundry, seeking their clothes. After a moment’s hesitation, Paige decided to wander upstairs, too, which left Laine, who hung back, and Solace, who was watching her. As if sensing her scrutiny (which, Solace realised, she probably was), the psychic turned. They locked eyes, black against pale blue. Laine tilted her head towards the kitchen.

Walking around the edge of the bench, Solace flinched in belated memory of the swan, bracing herself against the expected pile of gore. Instead, the tiles were bare of blood and feather both, as though Duchess’s gruesome meal had never taken place.

‘She really did vanish the rest,’ murmured Laine, placing a pale hand on the counter. Looking up slowly, she straightened the front of her robe. Her voice was soft. ‘I’m sorry.’

Solace sighed. ‘It was when you brushed my hand, wasn’t it? The touch. You read my mind. My reaction.’

‘Yes.’ She flicked at a strand of hair. ‘I don’t mean to. Usually, I try to block it out. I still hear stray thoughts if they’re concentrated enough – if someone’s worried, say, or scared, any sort of gut feeling – but physical contact changes things. I go deeper. And I see things people wish I didn’t. That I shouldn’t.’ She shook her head, laughed. ‘I’m really a thief, of sorts.’

‘It wasn’t so bad,’ said Solace, unwillingly. Despite somehow knowing that Laine had glimpsed nothing more shocking than her buried loneliness, and not, for instance, last night’s conversation with Duchess, she couldn’t bring herself to feel relieved. ‘Probably, you didn’t need to be psychic to see – I mean, I don’t exactly know much about my parents, and reading the book …’ She let the words trail off, watching Laine’s face. ‘But it’s not just me, is it? And not just then.’

‘No.’ Laine made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. ‘
Secrets all unsaid.
That’s me.’

Even after such prolonged discussion, it took Solace a moment to place the reference. ‘You think you’re the Watcher?’

‘I know I am. It can’t refer to anyone else.’ She ran a hand through her hair. Adrift with static, several threads clung to her fingers.

Solace stared at her. ‘You don’t want the others to know.’ It wasn’t a question.

A flush crept into Laine’s cheeks. ‘I am a creature of secrets.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘I never wanted to be. But now that I hold so many, it’s hard to give them up. Let me choose the moment. Please?’

For a moment, Solace was paralysed by the irony: thanks to Duchess and her command of silence, she entirely sympathised with Laine, but was unable to say so for precisely that reason. And who was to say her intuition was correct, and Laine hadn’t learned exactly those truths she’d been told to keep to herself ? She felt sick with uncertainty.

But then she saw her friend’s face, and knew. Laine hadn’t asked for her Trick, any more than Solace had asked to be Sanguisidera’s enemy. That hadn’t stopped either of them from trying to do the right thing.

‘I will wait,’ she promised. ‘And you can be the one to tell.’

‘Tell what?’ asked Evan, sauntering into the kitchen. Freshly dressed and devoid of his usual mocking expression, he looked somehow different, as though it were possible to don maturity along with a clean shirt and – saints be praised – pants.

‘True things,’ said Laine, after a moment’s pause, glancing at Solace. ‘And the promise of truth.’

‘Mysterious,’ said Evan, but without humour. As his gaze left Laine and lighted on her, Solace felt the skin along her spine begin to tingle.

‘A secrecy of birds,’ she echoed, almost without thought.

‘Mm,’ said Evan. He blinked. ‘Speaking of which, is Her Smallness coming to Kent Street? I only ask because, in the interest of discretion, even the average Sydneysider is likely to notice her traipsing along behind us.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Solace considered the question. ‘I suppose it’s up to her. I mean, it’s not as if we can actually lock her in.’ Suddenly curious, she looked around. ‘Where’s she gone, anyway?’

Evan frowned. ‘Upstairs with the others? I don’t know.’

‘Laine,’ Solace said slowly, ‘can you hear Duchess thinking? I mean, if you can read minds, and she does talk – well, I mean, she
thinks
, but –’

Laine shook her head. ‘No. It’s like static electricity, I suppose you’d say, or snow on a TV channel. The signal’s there, but it’s not getting through. She’s on a different frequency.’

Solace swallowed a shot of relief, followed swiftly by a guilt chaser. She trusted Laine, but with Manx already able to hear Duchess, another person would have been too much.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘either she’ll come, or she won’t. There’s not much more we can say.’

Over by the laundry, Harper straightened from tying his shoelaces. ‘We ready to go?’ he asked.

Solace nodded. A moment later, the other girls reappeared. Paige sported two small braids amid her usual scruff of hair, while Jess and Electra had each settled on a single, precise plait.

‘I have a question,’ Jess announced, jumping down the last two stairs.

‘What’s up?’

‘Where exactly is this house? I mean –’ the seer laughed, ‘– clearly it’s
here
, and, by the look of our yellow Earth sun, somewhere on the right planet. But couldn’t Duchess have brought us anywhere? For all we know, we’re in Arkansas. Or Sweden! This could be Sweden!’

‘No, it couldn’t,’ Manx countered, walking up. Despite having been second-last out of the shower, his reddish hair was almost dry, gleaming a little in the light. ‘I had a look over the back fence, and I’m pretty sure we’re still in Sydney – not the CBD, but one of the closer suburbs, anyway. No need to panic.’

‘Well, thank God for that!’ said Jess. ‘For a minute there, I thought we were as stuffed as a turkey.’

‘Oh, bollocks,’ Solace muttered. Everyone looked at her. ‘We still are – I mean,
I
am, anyway.’ She nodded at the window. ‘It’s the middle of the afternoon. You know, sun shining brightly down in a leave-the-house-and-start-fainting kind of way? I was all right outside for a few minutes when the clouds were thick, but how the hell do I get to the city?’

This gave the group some pause. Then a thought seemed to occur to Evan. Holding up a hand, he ducked out through the front door – pulling it courteously shut behind him, so as not to blind Solace with sunlight – then, after less than a minute, came back inside. A broad grin stretched his face.

‘Hey, if by some miracle of hallucinogenic weirdness you ever get to talk to your parents? Tell them from me they are
gods
.’

‘What –’ Electra started, but Evan cut her off, almost laughing with glee.

‘A Kombi van. They left us a damn original freakin’ Kombi!’

‘Clearly, they didn’t know
you
were coming,’ Jess muttered, but Solace saw interest light her eyes.

‘Can anyone here actually drive?’ asked Harper.

‘Can I drive? Can
I
drive?’ Evan was affronted.

‘
No
,’ said Laine and Jess, at once. Electra made a choking sound.

‘Are there keys?’ asked Paige.

‘Indeedy-do. They’re already in the ignition.’

‘Glee,’ said Jess, grinning broadly. ‘Dibs on driving.’

‘Shotgun!’ yelled Evan.

‘What are you, twelve?’ said Laine, her usual deadpan humour softened by a slight smile.

‘Thirteen, if you must know.’

‘Oh, my
hero
.’

She was out the door before he could think of a comeback.

There was a last minute scramble as everyone searched for their meagre belongings – money,wallets, watches – and, finally, a key to the house, once Electra pointed out the necessity of having such a thing. It proved easy to find, hanging on a hook beside the front door. By mutual agreement, Manx was put in charge of it.

Patting her jacket pockets to double-check the key to Starveldt and the pages from her mother’s book, Solace finally conceded readiness, walked into the hallway and, with a deep breath, opened the door. Throughout the comings and goings of her friends, she’d kept herself away from the sun, but now there was no avoiding it. This time, the light hit her full and heavy, unmuffled by clouds; her eyes felt sore as if she’d opened them under salt water. Blearily, she saw an open roller-door garage to the right of the house, and staggered for the safety of shade.

Once inside, she blinked, panting a little. No doubt about it: her reaction to the light was getting worse. As the spots faded from her vision, she focused on the Kombi. The van seemed original: powderblue on the outside, black leather seats, sliding door half-open where Laine had entered. There was even a sixties flower decal on the rear window.

Pulling the door completely open, Solace smiled to see the psychic sitting in the middle row of seats, an odd expression on her face.

‘What –’ she began, then looked at the very back seat. And laughed.

For there, curled up in a tight blue circle on the leather, green eyes closed and hidden from view, was Duchess.

The van moved, and Laine’s thoughts moved with it.

Last night, exhausted and overwrought after their escape from Sanguisidera, she’d found herself sharing a chair with Evan, bodies pressed together as Jess, Electra and Solace explained what had happened. Their Tricks were similar enough that the contact had sparked something off – need, maybe, or loneliness – and knitted them together with cobweb strands of awareness. It was gentle, and strange, and comforting at a time when comfort was in short supply, but even so, if they hadn’t wound up sharing a room, nothing might ever have come of it.

But something
had
come of it. They’d slept together.

If Laine was honest, she had done more than Evan to instigate it. Unlike every other bedroom in the house, theirs hadn’t contained any actual beds – just a pair of mattresses pushed against opposite walls, and sheets enough to cover them. It wasn’t a big room. By stretching out a hand in the darkness, Laine had been able to touch Evan’s wrist, reigniting the contact. Neither had spoken. She’d asked permission with each brush of skin, and was granted it. Almost, she could fool herself into thinking that she’d just wanted to hold someone, and to be held; to feel the particular sense of safety that comes from being pressed up against another person in the dark, breathing together. But she’d wanted more, too, and after everything that had happened in the previous forty-eight hours, Evan had been eager enough to focus on something better, more real, more tangible.

Remembering, she twined her fingers together.
I should’ve been more careful.
For most other girls, that thought would have hinted at fears about an accidental pregnancy, but Laine had long since paid for an implant to prevent that from happening; a slim metal bar buried beneath the skin of her arm. No, she had no fears on that count, and thanks to her Trick, she knew she wasn’t in danger of having caught anything, either. Two clean, safe, willing bodies, freed from the interruption of speech, that’s what they’d been. Where was the danger in it, the risk? But of course, she should’ve learned by now. Sex was never just sex, not for a psychic.

What had she thought – that sleeping with an empath would make all the difference? That somehow, being part of a couple where both parties could read into each other would cancel out her Trick, even though that electric touch, that sharing without speech, was what had attracted them in the first place?
Idiot
, she told herself.
It doesn’t work that way.
Instead, they’d wound up sharing more than just bed and breath. Memories had bled between them, flashes of hidden truth, old anguish and the day-to-day, as sudden as a flock of birds startled from their roost. Once she’d realised what was happening – and worse, that it was going both ways – it had been all Laine could do to keep her secrets from spilling out, clutching so tight to the Great Lie that she’d thought her heart would explode.

If Evan realised she’d been trying to hold back, he didn’t say anything, but when they finished, there’d been tears on both their cheeks. A sense of emptiness pervaded the room. They lay in each other’s arms, cold sweat sticking the sheets to their skin, and didn’t speak; but this time, even the silence was bereft of communication. Finally, Laine reached out and pulled her own abandoned mattress close alongside Evan’s, so that she could roll onto it without getting up. She’d felt satiated and sleepy, but also numb, dizzy with expended magic. What had they done, and what did it mean? She didn’t know, and before she could think to ask, she’d fallen into dreams.

When she woke, Evan was already up, and she was alone in the room. Her head ached in the special way it sometimes did when she’d pushed her Trick too hard, and which meant she’d be blissfully dull for the next few hours at least, almost a normal girl, deaf to the noisy brains of those around her. But when she tentatively stretched her gift – like pressing a bruise, to gauge how bad it was – she found that, far from being hurt, the encounter had left her even more sensitive than usual. Without trying, she could catch stray thoughts from everyone in the house, even detecting the fumbled dream-logic of the few who were still asleep. Though she desperately wanted a shower, it was a while before she could bring herself to leave the room. Instead, she dressed, pushed the mattresses back the way they’d been, and sat cross legged on the floor, trying to block everyone out, setting the mental wards she’d first taught herself to build at school. She was out of practice; she’d let herself get sloppy, and it took longer than she remembered.