The ‘boys’, as Karla termed her menfolk, hauled back a fir tree cut from the family plot. It was twice my height and fil ed the family room to the ceiling.
After the customary swearing over faulty bulbs and missing extension cords, Saul and Victor wrapped it in lights. The younger members of the family got to put on the decorations, Zed lifting me up on his back so I could put my choices on the higher branches.
Karla recounted a tale for each one, either something about the person who gave it to her or about the place she had bought it. I got an impression of a huge extended family from here to Argentina with far flung branches in Asia and Europe. It made my own family of three seem very smal .
‘Now we have the carols!’ declared Karla, returning with a tray of mul ed wine, more hot chocolate for me, and sweet cinnamon biscuits.
Trace pretended to groan and complain. From the amused lights that shone around him, I guessed he was merely fulfil ing his expected role as family musical failure. I settled back on a beanbag, keeping out of the way with my guilty conscience for company, and watched Saul tune up his fiddle, Zed get out his guitar, and Uriel assemble his flute. They played a selection of traditional carols beautiful y, some of the tunes so haunting I felt I was transported back in time to when these were first sung. It was only then that I realized Uriel was glowing gently with a bronze light. He was not only playing tunes from the past, I could see that he was partly there.
‘We need a vocalist,’ Uriel announced. ‘Trace?’
Everyone laughed.
‘Sure, if you want to spoil the moment,’ he said, half getting up before Wil wrestled him back down.
‘Sky?’ suggested Yves.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t sing.’
‘You’re real y musical—I’ve played with you, remember,’ he coaxed.
A flutter of panic made me want to hide. ‘I don’t sing.’
Uriel closed his eyes for a moment. ‘You did.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Why not, Sky?’ asked Zed softly. ‘That’s behind you now. You’ve looked at the memories and can put them away. Today’s a new start.’
Just not the start he was expecting. Oh God, help me.
Karla passed around the plate of biscuits, trying to break the tension. ‘Leave the poor girl alone, you three. No one has to sing if they don’t want to.’
But I did. Underneath the alarm, I knew that as a musician I would love to sing, use my voice as another instrument.
‘Come on, I’l sing with you.’ Zed held out his hand.
‘We’l al sing,’ suggested Uriel. ‘ "Joy to the World"?’
‘I’l play my sax,’ I prevaricated. My mum had dropped it by earlier, knowing I needed music as a comfort when I was distressed.
The Benedicts then proved they not only sang but they harmonized as wel as any choir I’d heard. Even Trace ventured a few bass notes without disgracing himself.
At the end, Zed gave me a hug. ‘You’ve a great touch on the sax. You know it’s the closest instrument to a human voice.’
I nodded. My tenor sax had been a way of singing without it actual y being me. It might be close but I sensed it wasn’t quite enough for Zed. He wanted everything and knew I was holding back.
Zed gave up his bedroom to me that night to bunk with Xav. Despite my anxious state of mind, I was so mental y exhausted, I managed to sleep, the first real y unbroken rest I’d had since my kidnapping. I woke the next morning to find my mind had been working in the night to sort itself out like a computer going through a defragging process. Having stumbled past my early memories, I remembered everything about Las Vegas. Kel y had taken me apart bit by bit. He’d made me think such terrible things about Zed and Xav, sprayed his graffiti al over my mind—I hated him for that. But now I was back in charge; I could tel truth from falsehood and that was worth celebrating at least. Desperate to share the discovery, I rushed to find Zed.
‘Hey!’ I burst into Xav’s room which was next door.
Zed was stil zipped up in a cocoon of a sleeping bag on the floor, Xav sprawled on the bed, mouth open, snoring. ‘Zed!’
‘W-what?’ He scrambled out and grabbed me close, assuming we had to be under attack. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I know who took me! I remember it al .’
Xav tumbled out of bed. ‘Sky? Wha’s’matter?’
I suddenly became conscious that I was standing there in nothing more than a long T-shirt and knickers. I should have stopped to put on more clothes.
‘Um, can you get Trace and Victor, Zed?’ I asked, edging back. ‘I’ve got something to tel them.’
Zed had had time to surface from sleep. He grinned and patted my butt. ‘Go put on my dressing gown. I’l get them out of bed and meet you in the kitchen. Mom and Dad wil want to hear this too.’
I told them what I remembered over a cup of tea—
my English drinking habits surfacing when I felt most uncomfortable. The memories were frightening: the hotel, Daniel Kel y forcing images into my head, the son circling me like a blubbery great white shark.
Victor recorded what I said, nodding as if I was confirming things he had suspected.
‘Another family of savants outside the Net,’ mused Saul when I’d finished. ‘Ones with no soulfinders to add balance. And they had O’Hal oran on the payrol .
Sounds to me that there’s more out there than we thought.’
‘I know how to manipulate people’s minds,’ said Victor, tucking the recorder in his pocket, ‘but I would never think to do it to such an extent.’
‘That’s because Kel y’s evil and you’re not,’ I suggested. ‘I’m not joking when I said it was like brain mugging. He stole from me, trying to make me hate you.’ I reached for Zed’s hand under the table.
‘The pictures are stil there in my head even if I know they’re false.’
‘Have you heard of a gift like the son’s before?’
Zed asked Saul, squeezing my fingers in reassurance. ‘I don’t like the way he went after Sky, making everything worse.’
Saul rubbed his chin in thought. ‘The Ute talk of people who thrive on the emotion of others. They are the parasites in the savant world.’
‘And the daughter, what can she do?’ asked Trace.
‘Maybe she has a gift with shields—at least she talked about breaking through mine but it wasn’t strong enough to stand up to Daniel Kel y. He’s very powerful. I resisted for as long as I could.’
‘Probably longer than she expected,’ commented Victor. ‘And it didn’t take properly, did it? You questioned al the time.’
‘Are you going to arrest him?’
‘Ah.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘The thing is, Sky, this isn’t evidence that I can use to apprehend Daniel Kel y. He’s a powerfulman; his money buys a lot of silence. No judge would accept your account, especial y after the confused version you’ve already given to the Las Vegas police accusing others.’
‘Zed and Xav.’
‘Yeah. They dropped their investigation when I proved that they couldn’t have had anything to do with your abduction, but it discredits you as a witness.’
‘I see. So there was no point me tel ing you al this?’
‘Of course there’s a point. We have the truth now and it ties up the things we didn’t understand or couldn’t know. It is invaluable that we are aware that there are other savants out there working on the dark side.’ He curled his lip ironical y at the Hol ywood echo. ‘Yeah, we have a dark side too in the savant world. We could’ve walked into al manner of traps if we’d remained in ignorance. And it raises the possibility that the mole in the FBI does not even know they’re doing it. Daniel Kel y could have got to one of my col eagues and forced them to betray us.