“He thinks I’m asking for trouble. Her family are very White, brilliant White. Pure as they come. Involved with the Council . . . Hunters.”
“She doesn’t sound your type.”
“She’s not like them.”
And she is my type, very much my type.
“You’re not thinking of going back to see her?”
I think about it a lot, though I know it would be stupid.
Ellen says, “I told Arran where I live in London. He said we should meet up, maybe. I thought that I could get messages to him for you. I’d be like the go-between.”
I don’t know. It might be better if I never contact them again. But if anyone could do it Ellen could.
I say, “Ellen, I don’t want to get you into trouble with the Council.”
“Ha! Too late for that.”
She gets out her mobile phone. “I took a photo of Arran. And a short video.”
I tell myself I’m not going to cry, not in front of Ellen, and I’m okay at first. Arran looks a little older, but his hair is the same. He’s pale, but he looks good. He tries to smile and doesn’t quite manage it. He tells me a little about what he’s doing at university, and about Deborah and David, and then he tells me how he’s missed me and wants to see me but knows it’s impossible. He hopes I’m well, really well, not just physically but inside myself too, and says he’s always believed in me and knows I’m a good person, and he hopes I can get away, that I must be careful whom I trust and that I must leave them all behind, how he and Deborah will be fine and will be happy knowing I am free and that is how he’ll think of me, happy and free, always.
I have to walk away for a bit after watching it. And I so want to see Arran for real and be with him, and I know I can’t. I can’t ever do that.
Later I thank Ellen for helping me. I’m not sure what else to do. I offer her some money, but she doesn’t want any, so we have fish and chips and sit in the park eating them. I tell her she has to go back to her dad, and she complains, but not much.
She selects a chip and asks me what I’m going to do next.
“Get three gifts.”
“You’re going to find Mercury, then.”
And I wonder about Ellen. “What do Half Bloods do, Ellen? Do they have Givings? Do they have Gifts?”
“They don’t have Givings unless the Council allows it, which only happens rarely and also means working for them in exchange for them allowing the ceremony. I’ll never work for the Council; they despise us. All witches do. But I’ve heard of a few Half Bloods in the past who have had Givings from their witch parent and have found their Gift. My gran’s too terrified of the Council to even see me; she’ll never help me.”
“So? What are you going to do? If you can’t get three gifts from your gran or the Council?”
“I don’t know yet. There’s always Mercury. But she’s the absolute last resort.”
“What do you know about her?”
“She’s a nasty piece of work. You shouldn’t trust her. Rumor has it she makes slaves of little girls. So I’m not racing over for her help just yet. You shouldn’t trust her.” Ellen picks a fat chip.
“I’m not a little girl.”
“She doesn’t make slaves of little boys, she eats them.” Ellen pops the chip into her mouth.
“You serious?”
Ellen nods and swallows. “That’s what I heard.” She selects another chip and looks up at me. “Not raw. She cooks them first.”
PART FIVE: GABRIEL
Geneva
Geneva Airport. The journey here was stressfuclass="underline" working out how to get a flight, flying, and worst of all standing at Passport Control. Though my passport worked fine.
The instructions on the piece of paper Trev gave me say to be at the revolving glass doors at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. There are people walking in and out of the glass doors. People of all ages: business people with mini wheeled suitcases, air hostesses with micro wheeled suitcases, pilots with black-leather wheeled cases, holidaymakers with huge wheeled cases. Everybody is moving quickly, not really rushing, not in bad moods, just getting to where they are going.
And then there’s me, wearing sunglasses, a cap, an Arab scarf, fingerless gloves, a thick green army jacket, jeans, and boots, carrying my battered rucksack.
I don’t know what time it is but I’ve been here ages: it’s way past eleven o’clock.
A movement in the cafe to my right catches my eye. A young man in sunglasses waves me over.
I pick my way through the narrow gaps between the tables and stand opposite him. He doesn’t look up but swirls his half-full coffee cup around and drains it. He puts the cup in the saucer as he stands, grabs hold of my arm, and, moving fast, guides me through the revolving doors and into the next building, the train station.
We go down an escalator to Platform 4 and straight onto a train. It’s gloomy in here. The train’s a double-decker and we go upstairs, where he lets go of my arm. We sit on a sofa-style seat with a little round table in front of us.
My contact looks a year or two older than me, Arran’s age, I guess. His skin is olive, and he has shoulder-length wavy hair, dark brown with lighter streaks in it. He’s smiling, lips together, like he’s just heard a really good joke. He’s wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses with silver frames, almost identical to mine.
The train starts, and a few minutes into the journey a ticket inspector appears at the far end of the carriage. My contact goes downstairs and I follow. We stand by the doors. He’s slim, a tad taller than me and he doesn’t have the hiss of a mobile phone to him.
I think he might be a Black Witch. I want to see his eyes.
The train stops a minute later. It’s Geneva Central Station. My contact sets off fast, and I walk a step behind him.
We walk for an hour or so, always fast, but going back on ourselves quite a bit; I come to recognize a few shop windows and glimpses of the lake. We finally enter a residential area of tall apartment blocks and stop at a door in an old building much like all the others we’ve passed. The road here is quiet, a few parked cars, no traffic, and no other pedestrians. My contact pushes a number code into the entry system, saying to me, “9-9-6-6-1 . . . okay?”
And I say, “9-9-6-6-1, okay.”
He lets the door swing back hard in my face so that I have to stop it with a slam of my palm. I stride after him up the stairs, up and up, and up, and up, and up . . .
We continue to the sixth floor, the top floor, where the stairs come to an end at a small landing. There is one wooden door.
Once again there isn’t a key but a number code. “5-7-6-3-2 . . . okay?”
And he goes in and lets the door slam behind him.
I stand looking around. The varnish on the door is peeling, the landing is bare, the plaster is cracked, an old blackened cobweb hangs loosely in the corner. An empty silence hangs around too. There is no hissing.
He opens the door. “5-7-6—”
“I know.”
His smile has gone, but he still has his sunglasses on.
“Come in.”
I don’t move.
“It’s safe.”
He holds the door wide open with his back and repeats, “It’s safe.” He speaks quietly. His accent is strange. I think it must be Swiss.
I walk over the threshold and the door clicks shut behind me. I feel him watching me. I don’t want him there, behind me.
I wander around the room. It’s large, with a kitchenette in the right-hand corner: a few cupboards, a sink, an oven. Moving around I pass between the fireplace and a small, old sofa. There’s no carpet, but wooden floorboards stained dark brown, almost black, and three rugs of different sizes, all a sort of Persian design. The walls are painted a creamy color but there are no pictures or anything else, apart from a long smoke stain on the chimney-breast over the fireplace. It looks like a fire might be the only source of heat, and the slate fireplace contains a metal grate and some blackened logs. Next to it is a large pile of wood, a newspaper, and a box of matches. Moving left, I come to a small window that looks toward the lake and the mountains beyond. I can see blue water and a section of green-gray mountains. In front of the window is a wooden table and two old-style French cafe chairs.