The Sign of One. Eugene Lambert

burn this place down?’ I say, shocked.

      A ghost of a smile haunts her lips. ‘Got a better idea?’

7

       A BAD DECISION

      ‘Don’t just sit there. Get dressed and give me a hand moving this,’ says Rona. She pulls at our cast-iron log burner, but can’t move it on her own.

      The enormity of what’s happened to me, and what will happen if anyone finds out, is sinking in. I hear the air roaring in my ears with every breath I take. I reckon we should be hitting the road, not shifting stoves around.

      ‘What for?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand.’

      Rona puts her hard face on and grits her teeth.

      ‘Kyle, every second counts. I need you to help me. Now.’

      I still feel like screaming, but the desperation in her voice gets me moving. I throw my clothes on. Working together, we walk the stove back and lever up its hearthstone. Hidden in a hollow beneath this, smothered in bugwebs, is something wrapped in an oil-stained rag and a small electronic device.

      More secrets Rona has kept from me.

      ‘What’s all this?’ I ask.

      She picks the device up, blows the worst of the dust off and powers it up.

      ‘My old comm. Hoped I’d never have to use this.’

      Amazingly – because it looks like it’s been down there for ages – the communicator beeps and boots up. Looking satisfied, Rona powers it down, then buries it in her healer basket. The other rag-wrapped thing, she pockets. The shape of it and the weight dragging her jacket down all say blaster to me.

      ‘Where’d you get tech like that?’ I say.

      Either she doesn’t hear me or pretends not to.

      ‘See if you can put the burner back the way it was,’ she says. ‘I have to go out now. You bolt the door behind me and let nobody in. Okay?’

      I shrug. ‘Where are you going?’

      Rona frowns. ‘I’ll check my other patients, then call some old friends of mine from a lifetime ago. With luck, they’ll be able to help us.’

      ‘But if they find out I’m a –’

      I stop myself from saying ‘twist’ just in time, as Rona glares at me. ‘Trust me,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back quick as I can.’

      Last thing she does is stick some fresh dressings on me. I whine, saying I don’t need them now, but she insists, telling me it’s a precaution. She heads off then, her healer basket on its strap over her shoulder. I bolt the door behind her, like she said, open the shutters a crack and watch her trudge away, head down and back bent, along the track towards the other farmsteads.

      She glances back once, but doesn’t wave.

      I get that, but only later. Why wave to someone who’s supposedly dying?

      Now I’m on my own, my thoughts run riot. I mean, how do you handle finding out that you’re evil and a monster? The bane of Wrath. A foul caricature of humanity, like that High Slayer Morana woman said at the Peace Fair.

      Don’t ask me – I haven’t got any answers. All I’ve got is a fever of questions and a lump of dread in my stomach.

      After a while, I start thinking that bolting the door behind Rona wasn’t such a slick idea after all. What if Fod comes back? Or somebody else pops round looking for Rona? Won’t it look suspicious if the door’s bolted and Rona doesn’t answer? It’s not like I can let them in; I’m supposed to be dying. Maybe it’d be better if I unbolted the damn thing, hunkered down under my sheets and took my chances.

      Yeah right. And hope if I get a visitor they’re not too curious.

      In the end I chicken out and leave the door bolted.

      The day limps by. The sun goes down and still there’s no sign of Rona coming back. I’m on my bed, hugging my knees, moaning and trying not to puke. I stare at where my wounds were and more questions hammer inside my head.

       What am I? Who am I? How can this be?

      Thing is – I don’t feel evil. Okay, I look at my skin and I see twist, but I’m still me, Kyle. Unless the becoming evil thing happens later? When I was little, I once stuffed my face with some mushrooms I found. Their purple was all over my face when Rona caught me. She went mental, terrified I’d eaten poisonous ones. I sat there, cringing and crying, wondering when the poison would kill me.

      That’s what this feels like now. An evil within, waiting to possess me.

      You’re human, Rona said. But she would, wouldn’t she?

      I’m so busy feeling sorry for myself, I don’t hear the footsteps. The knock at the door is only a tap, but I nearly die of fright. I cower, wondering if it’s Jude at last, or Fod again, before I hear Rona’s whisper telling me it’s only her. I draw the bolts back and open the door. She slips inside past me. In the glow from the tubes, I glimpse some colour back in her face. She looks tired but satisfied.

      ‘You got hold of your friends?’ I ask her.

      She nods and smiles at me. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

      ‘How come?’

      ‘We need to be ready tomorrow,’ is all she’ll say.

      I throw more questions at her – like who are these friends of hers and how come I’ve never heard of them before? – but she’s not in a talking mood. And when I wake the next morning, after a long night of tossing and turning and dreams I can’t remember, I find her gone again. There’s a note waiting on the kitchen table. In her loopy scrawl, it tells me she’ll be back very late, that there’s food in the cool store, and to put together a day pack with my trail gear and be ready to go. Bolt the door, the note says, and don’t let anyone in, no matter what they say.

      That means Judith too is double underlined.

      A second day of waiting stretches out into forever. A thousand times I shrink inside, sure I hear footsteps again on the path. I endlessly pack and repack my rucksack. In the end, I lie on my bed, Rona’s rusty old hunting blade beside me.

      What’s Rona up to?

      Where will we be going?

      I stare at my little fingers. How can I be a twist?

      Questions, questions. No bogging answers. It’s doing my head in.

      The room gets darker and darker and so does my mood. Through the cracks in the shutters I see the sun set again, but still no sign of Rona. I’m going out of my mind with being lonely and frightened and not having anybody to talk to.

      As the glowtubes flicker on, I think of Jude.

      I miss her. And that’s when the thought strays into my head . . .

      I just have to say goodbye to Jude. I know it’s mad, but I can’t clear off forever and leave her lonely and thinking I’m burnt to a black, charred crisp. Rona will kill me, but Jude’s not just my girl, she’s my only real friend.

      The Flint farmstead is ten klicks away. It’s cloudy, so neither the little dogmoon or the bigmoon to shed any light, but I find my way easy enough. Should do – I’ve worn a groove in this trail these past few months. A rain shower rattles through, but that’s good. Less chance of anyone else being out. It feels great to be outside, breathing fresh air deep into my lungs. My skin tingles with the damp and the moving. With every step I take, I start to feel stronger.

      Only . . . what’s causing that? I