Ravensborough (27 page)

Liv sighed. ‘Right, I better light a candle.’ She walked over to a shelf under the window and picked up a candle. As she was turning back to me, I suddenly had an idea. I didn’t know much about magic, but there was no way we were going to get out of here alive if I didn’t do something. I slammed the book closed and picked it up. I ran to the other side of the room with it.

‘Get right behind me!’ I shouted to the others. ‘Now!’

‘That’s cute Scarlett, but it’s not going to work,’ Liv drawled. She put her hand out, palm facing upwards and a blue ball of light formed on her hand. She threw it at us and it sent us flying like skittles.

‘I was sure that would work! I was sure the book would try to protect itself!’ I shouted in panic at Aradia.

‘It did!’ she shouted back. ‘Guys get behind her again.’ Liv formed another ball in her hand, still blue though a darker shade than before.

‘Focus, Scarlett,’ Aradia whispered in my ear. ‘Concentrate on pushing the energy back at her!’

I didn’t know what she meant, but I focused my mind and tried to do what she said, pouring all the energy I had into the task. When the impact came it was still hefty, but this time we managed to stay standing.

‘Push harder,’ Aradia urged.

‘I can’t,’ I said through gritted teeth. The mental toll of pushing back against her was colossal – I knew that I couldn’t keep it up for much longer. Liv continued to pound us with bolts of light, and we managed to stay upright, but no more.

The room turned dark. I looked up at the window, and there was a swarm of ravens outside. They would help me, I was suddenly sure of it. I didn’t know where the knowledge came from. But how would they get in?

‘Gethan,’ I screamed. ‘Gethan!’

‘What Scarlett?’ his voice shouted back to me through the door.

‘We need help!’

‘No we don’t, we’re fine!’ Liv shouted back, her voice reverting to the flirty cadences she always employed when talking to Gethan.

‘Don’t listen to her,’ I shouted back frantically. ‘She’s trying to kill us!’

‘I can’t come in Scarlett you know that!’ he shouted back.

‘I need you to smash the window around the back!’ I shouted through the door.

‘I can’t!’ he shouted back. ‘I can’t touch the building, it’s protected!’

I scrambled across the floor to pick up the book, but Liv stood between me and the book. With nothing else to do, I grabbed my locket as if holding it would make the charm extra powerful.

‘I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,’ Liv said. ‘Your locket wards off dark magic, and I don’t practice dark magic. So it’s as good as useless.’

She walked over to me and leaned her face in toward mine, her face scrunched up and menacing.

‘This is my final warning. Get over to the lectern with the book
now
, or I will torture one of your little friends here.’

I struggled to my feet. All of a sudden there was a large crash as the window shattered under pressure from the ravens. The glass went everywhere and I heard Mei gasp in pain. The birds poured into the room. I closed my eyes and willed them to stop Liv, somehow. I heard her scream and opened my eyes. All I saw was silver moonlight glinting off the shiny feathers of the ravens. She was screaming in pain as they attacked her.

Aradia got to her feet and ran towards the door, pulling it open. Gethan was standing there looking confused as Liv’s screams echoed in the night air. It wouldn’t be long before the soldiers heard the noise and came to investigate.

‘Call the birds off, and put the book back in the cupboard,’ Aradia said frantically. I closed my eyes and imagined the ravens flying out the window and out into the night sky. With a flutter of wings, they did just that. I ran with the book, struggling with its weight, and stashed it back in the large closet. I could make out sticky patches on Liv where the birds had broken the skin. She was lying in a puddle of blood.

‘Oh my God,’ said Sam. ‘Is she dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said in a shaky voice staring at her. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. There were open wounds all over her body, and her face was unrecognisable. Under the blood I saw a glimpse of white bone and felt my stomach heave.

‘Guys, we have to go!’ Gethan called through the door. ‘There are soldiers on their way!’

‘What are we going to do?’ Mei said, her voice full of fear. ‘We can’t just leave her here!’

‘Well, we can’t take her with us,’ said Aradia urgently. ‘Carrying her will slow us down, and we’ll be caught. Look, the soldiers will find her and call an ambulance. She’ll be ok!’

‘We’ve got to go now,’ urged Gethan. ‘Hurry!

I stood still, looking at Liv who was still lying on the ground unmoving.

‘Scarlett, we’ve got to go!’ said Mei grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the door. A group of soldiers were running down the road, alerted by the squawking birds freewheeling in the sky overhead.

‘Stick to the shadows!’ hissed Gethan. We walked slowly around the square in the dark, trying to make as little noise as possible. The soldiers arrived in the square.

‘Something’s not right,’ said one. ‘I want this area searched. Now!’

The soldiers turned their flashlights on the buildings around the square. Quickly, we climbed through a broken shop window and lay face down on the floor. Sam just lay down before a torch beam lit up the shop. I was afraid to breathe, and my lungs hurt for want of air. They were probably going to search all the buildings in the square – we were going to be caught.

‘Captain, look!’ a shout came. I closed my eyes tightly. ‘There’s a girl in here, she’s in a bad way. We’re going to need an ambulance.’

The torches were turned off, and I exhaled, relieved. Gethan got to his knees and looked out.

‘They’re all over by the temple,’ he whispered to us. ‘They’re not looking over here. We need to get onto the street that leaves to the station. Stay in the shadows everyone.’

We climbed slowly out the window and crept toward the street. Our hearts were pounding, but luck was with us and we managed to make our way out of the square undetected.

‘Are you ok?’ I whispered to Sam and Mei.

‘I’ll be a lot better when we get out of Darkfield,’ said Mei. ‘Nearly dying was kind of terrifying – I think I’m in shock.’

Sam said nothing, his face stony and unmoving. Well, we’d just witnessed something horrific, what could I expect?

We made our way back through the tunnel. The trains would have stopped for the night, and there was none of the laughing that had occurred on the way in. We were all subdued and we walked in silence. Finally, we reached the platform and pulled ourselves up. The electronic board told us that the next train was three hours away.

‘Will we wait?’ Aradia asked Gethan.

He shook his head. ‘We need to go somewhere safe in case they worked out how we got in.’

‘Where will we go?’ Mei asked.

‘We’ll go to mine,’ Aradia said. ‘Mum’s an apothecary, she should be able to sort out our injuries.’

I was wondering what injuries she was talking about. Then I felt a tremendous stinging all along my arm, which grew so painful it took my breath away. My back was sore too, probably from where I’d landed after being thrown across the floor.

We walked through the neutral area and up into the Pagan quarter and towards Aradia’s house. We went inside and she opened up a connecting door to the apothecary.

‘You all go down there, I’ll wake Mum,’ she told us.

Aradia came into the room with a sleepy looking Lavendell, who was in her dressing gown. She sighed looking at us all. I expected her to freak out and ask questions, but she didn’t.

‘Alright, who got the worst of it?’ she asked simply.

Sam pointed at me. ‘Scarlett did.’

‘Ok, where is sore?’ she asked gesturing to me to sit down on the counter.

‘My back is really sore, but my arm and my face hurt too,’ I told her. ‘The strange thing is, I only realised I was hurt on the walk back.’

‘It’s the shock,’ she said to me as she pulled up my top to examine my back. ‘It often stops you feeling pain when in danger so it doesn’t distract you from trying to get away from whatever is causing you harm. It’s sort of a survival instinct. I’m going to need to pick all this glass out of the wound.’

Lavendell was as gentle as she could be, but it still hurt. Sam held my hand while each piece was picked out. She then ground up a selection of herbs in her pestle and mortar and added pungent oil. The smell was strong and disgusting.

‘I know it doesn’t smell good,’ Lavendell laughed at my scrunched up face. ‘But it will speed up the healing process considerably. Your back is just badly bruised, it will heal up itself in time. Though if it gets very painful, you can take something to relieve that.’

‘What should I take?’ I asked.

She looked confused. ‘Well, what do you usually take? Paracetemol, ibuprofen..?’ She looked at my face and started to laugh. ‘Yes, I do use ordinary medicines too.’

She then treated Aradia, who had also been badly hurt, before moving on to Sam. She removed all the glass from his neck and face and then reached for the ointment.

‘No thank you,’ he said standing up. ‘I’ll let you remove the glass, but nothing else.’

‘But it might get infected,’ Lavendell pointed out.

‘I’ll take my chances. And if it does get infected I’ll, you know, go to someone who actually knows what they’re doing.’

‘Sam!’ I hissed. I couldn’t believe that he’d said that, especially after Lavendell had been so nice to him.

‘It’s ok, not everyone is comfortable with my methods,’ she said easily. Aradia, on the other hand, was giving him a look that would kill a lesser man.

Lavendell patched Mei up, which proved to be the trickiest as a large piece of glass had got embedded underneath the skin.

‘That looks really painful,’ I said, wincing.

‘I’ve had worse climbing,’ she said nonchalantly, but I could see that she was blinking back tears.

‘I wonder if Liv is all right,’ said Aradia. ‘I thought she was my friend. I just can’t believe that she could do something like that.’

‘What will happen to her?’ I asked. ‘You know...if...’

‘If she’s alive?’ asked Gethan. There was a moment of silence as we registered the possibility that she might not be.

‘She’ll be questioned about why she was in Darkfield, and how she got in,’ said Lavendell. ‘She might be charged with trespassing. Of course, if they manage to pin terrorist involvement on her then she’ll probably be neutered.’

‘Neutered?’ said Sam, sounding alarmed.

‘It’s a colloquial term, it means to strip someone of their powers,’ Gethan explained.

‘Could we do that with you?’ Sam asked me. ‘Get rid of all this unnatural stuff that seems to be inside you.’

There was silence.

‘I don’t think she should do anything hasty,’ Gethan supplied. ‘She should at least wait and see if she can control her powers.’

‘I don’t remember asking your opinion,’ Sam said through gritted teeth.

There was silence while Lavendell finished patching us up.

‘How do I find out about the Daughters of Morrigan?’ I asked Lavendell before I turned to go.

‘The internet and libraries should have some basic information. Other than that, you’ll have to track down a practitioner.’

Huh. That figured. Pity they were all in jail.

‘What about the raven thing? I mean, aren’t they supposed to be bad luck?’

‘I wouldn’t have had you pegged as the suspicious type,’ Aradia said glibly. ‘Seeing how you didn’t even believe in magic until recently.’

‘They helped you, they mean no harm. Regardless of what they bring to other people, to you they brought luck,’ Lavendell said.

‘We better go,’ Mei said to me. ‘At least if you want to get home before your mother wakes up and realises you’re gone.’

That was a point. I had enough complications in my life without being in her bad books. I thanked Lavendell again, said my goodbyes to Gethan and Aradia and left.

We walked to the nearest bus stop and got the first bus back to Chesterfield. Sam was silent the entire time. I wasn’t sure if it was anger at me, or the shock of almost dying– which admittedly was a lot for anyone to process. And he'd had almost died at the hands of a Pagan, part of a group of people who he distrusted anyway. No wonder he snapped at Lavendell. Either way his silence didn’t make for an awkward situation because Mei seemed to have recovered her equilibrium and barely stopped for breath between sentences.

The bus pulled into Chesterfield at five to seven in the morning. How had the time gone by so quickly? Sam had to get a bus in a couple of hours to take him to Northport. He’d have no time to sleep at all before his flight. If he was anything like me he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. I was too keyed up to sleep, and still had far too much adrenaline in my veins.

The house looked strangely normal after the events of last night. I left Sam and Mei fixing breakfast while I went upstairs and had a quick shower. Bruises coloured my arms, legs and lower back. The hot water soothed my tight muscles while I tried not to get water on my bandaged arm. I put on a long sleeved shirt in an effort to hide it from Mum.

When I got downstairs Mei had made a pot of coffee, scrambled eggs and toast.

‘Thanks, guys. This looks lovely!’ Sam was very conspicuously not talking to me at that point. Mei obviously picked up on this and finished up her breakfast quickly.

‘I’m going to head home now, I’ve family stuff on later’, she said, obviously keen to get away from the awkward atmosphere.

She gave me a hug. ‘Seeya Sam, it was nice meeting you. Have a good flight home.’ With that she was gone.

The silence hung so heavy in the room that I could hear the ticking of the clock.

‘Are you packed?’ I asked, trying to make conversation.

He looked at me angrily. ‘Am I packed? Am I
packed
? We nearly died last night and you want to talk about my
luggage
?!’

‘We nearly died, but we didn’t. We’re
alive
. Everything is ok now!’ I tried to make him understand. ‘We did a good thing, and stopped a crazy terrorist from doing real damage. Who else can say they did that on their holidays?’